Aro's Little Human Pet
by lbj
Summary: Aro adopts some pets...human pets that is.
1. Chapter 1

**I am not sure if this is junk or good. Be honest with me. And this story might actually have a plot (unlike every other story I've writen)**

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Does that line thing work?

KPOV:

If my life were turned into a metaphor, I would be the roasted turkey laid out on the table on thanksgiving. The family of people would be representative of the vampires that are always eyeing me, but resisting a bite until the time is right. The other humans would be the other foods, cranberry sauce, potatoes, dumplings, gravy and the corn bread.

You may wonder why I am the turkey and all the other people are the less important foods. If you are thinking I am obsessed with myself and that is why I compare myself to the main attraction, you are wrong.

I am just the one that they always seem to want to eat.

I suppose that is life. No matter what, you always seem to have it worse than someone else.

I was broken from my thoughts by a vampire wearing a typical Voulturi gown. Actually, they are robes, but to me it looks like all the guys are wearing gowns. I think about things like this to keep myself from freaking out like the other humans.

Did you know that the closest word to Voulturi I can think of is Vultures? Pretty appropriate, I think.

The vampire in the black gown looking cloak poked me.

"Ouch!" I said loudly and everyone in the room turned to look at me. He had poked me really hard though so I had a reason to be loud. It wasn't like I minded pain too much. I was going to have a bruise though, and I could see it growing darker. "Why'd you do that?"

He didn't even apologize. "Go into the room." He pointed to the giant oak doors in front of us. By us I meant the group of humans and vampire behind me.

"Why?" I asked stalling. I knew that whatever there was behind those doors, it couldn't be good in an underground freak house full of red-eyed vampires.

"Just go in." He looked agitated. I wondered why all the vampires I had met today looked like they hated me. Maybe it is just a vampire trait.

I walked up to the doors and opened them. They were heavy and it took a lot of strength to open them. I had just gotten in when they slammed behind me.

"Can someone say creepy." I muttered under my breath as I examined the room. It had a gothic style, by that I don't mean those kids dressed in all black but the actual gothic era, and everything was made of stone. It reminded me of a horror film I had just watched last week on the Sci-Fi channel. Seeing how my day was going, I doubted that I would ever see a TV again.

"Hello and welcome to my humble home!" I jumped as I heard the cheerful voice. I looked around but couldn't see anyone.

"Um, hi." I turned. "Where are you?"

The voice made a scoffing noise. "Don't worry about trivial details, there are more important things at hand." The Voice, I now decided to think of it with a capital letter, was strangely cheerful. "For instance, let's go through introductions. Introduce yourself."

I thought about how weird it was. "Normally, people introduce themselves first before asking another person to tell them their own names. Seeing how you asked first and you can see me but I can't see you, I think you should start."

The Voice laughed. "You are a funny one!" This Voice was starting to remind me of that one old man I met on the streets once. He called me a 'funny one' too, but then he patted my head and gave me a snickers bar. I obviously didn't eat it because he was a creepy stranger, but somehow this Voice was scarier to me. Maybe it was because I knew he was a vampire that wanted to suck me dry and the fact that I couldn't see him.

"You didn't answer my question." I checked behind me.

"Ah yes. How rude of me." The Voice chuckled again. "My name is Aro. Or at least that is what everyone here calls me. I couldn't tell you my full name now, could I?"

"You could." The second after I said it I regretted it. It probably wasn't wise to say things like that to crazy vampires.

Luckily for me, he didn't eat me. He just laughed. "I think I am growing to like you. It is hard to find a person in this place that doesn't look like they are at a funeral."

"Well, I suppose it is kind of like a funeral." My mouth was talking but my brain was telling it to shut up. I shouldn't be conversing with a vampire. "I mean, considering the fact that you have to eat people's insides. I think that it is very much like a massive funeral."

"How do you know what we are?" Aro's voice seemed closer. "Did one of the guards tell you during your stay here?"

"No." I looked around the room again but I still couldn't see him. "I figured it out."

Aro sounded genuinely curious. "You figured it out in just three days? How?"

"Oh," I peeked around the few objects in the room hoping to catch a glimpse of him. "That was easy. For the entire time I've been stuck here, there are these people who have blood red eyes and keep watching me like they want to kill me. Besides, there are the common signs of pale skin, sunken faces, avoidance of sunlight and the fact that everyone here, other than the people that are like me of course, are super strong. Did I leave anything out?"'

I heard Aro clap his hands together. "Splendid! You are rather clever, aren't you? What should I call you?"

"Um…by my name if you don't mind." I looked at the ceiling to see if he was there. "I would prefer not to be named like some dog."

"Oh dear!" Aro's voice grew solemn. "You don't know yet? That is a problem."

"What is?" I asked confused.

"The Voulturi has agreed that we should be able to keep some human pets!" If I could see Aro, I would be sure he would be smiling. "Isn't that simply lovely! Some little human pets! I got the idea from a friend of mine's son. His son has a human pet of his own. When I saw how much he cared for that little human girl, I thought, Aro, you must get one of those things.

"And so here we are." Aro sighed and I thought that he had become farther away. "All those little human people out there are going to be interviewed like you are being now, and then we are going to pick two to become our pets."

"What will happen to the rest of them?"

"Oh, we'll eat them of course." I felt horrified as I heard him speak. "Not to worry though, if you aren't chosen, being bitten isn't painful at all. It feels sort of nice actually. It is the changing into a vampire that hurts like hell."

"So you are going to turn the rest of them into vampires like you?" I asked hopefully.

"No, no." Aro sounded taken aback. "We will just eat them, or rather drink them."

"T-that's…" I spun around hoping to see where he was. Being trapped in a room with Aro was starting to creep me out. "That has to be the most…barbaric thing I've ever heard!" I spat out.

Aro just laughed. "Don't worry dear. I like your spunk. I will try to keep you. By the by, what do you think I should call you? I will let you have a word in your naming. I am thinking about naming you Bella after that one other pet, although I do like the name Danielle for a girl. Which do you like?"

"My name is Kristina." I tried to look at him with the evil eye, but it was hard seeing how I couldn't see him. "I won't be renamed and treated like a pet."

"Of course not!" Aro laughed again making me feel stupid. I was growing to loathe him. "You will have better food, naturally and we will treat you far better than any dog. We will talk to you and brush your hair and…"

"Stop!" I covered my ears. "Are you insane? Are all vampires as crazy as you are? Because you seem to be a few French fries short of a happy meal, and I don't want to be some pet of a crazed vampire that lives in a depressing underground tunnel."

For a moment he didn't speak. I figured that I pretty much had guarantied myself to be turned into the main course, or at a side dish, for some vampire.

After a while he spoke. "Do you really think this place is depressing? I could redecorate it for you, if you want."

I groaned. What was wrong with this guy? "Can you show me where you are so that I can at least talk to you face to face?"

Before I could blink, and old looking man was standing about an inch from my face. I staggered back surprised.

"Is this better?" He looked at me. "We are now face to face." He pressed his chalk white face closer to mine.

"I didn't mean that close." I blinked a few times. Even though he was old, he looked pretty good for an old guy, other than the color of his skin. He really could use a tan. If he fell asleep or something someone might think he was dead. I told him that, but he just laughed.

"I can't fall asleep so there is no need to fear for people confusing me with the dead. Although I sort of am dead if you think about it in a technical respect. My heart stopped a long time ago."

"Is that why you are so heartless?" I asked him. "You kill people because you can't feel love? Or is it just a sport?" My voice was full of loathing and he looked hurt. Fake hurt, of course. Vampires can't feel.

"No." Aro tilted his head and looked at me strangely. "I can love. There is no other option for us to eat…well other than the option that one of my dearest friends chose. I don't fancy the taste of animals though."

"Oh, well that's an excuse then." I snorted. "You don't like the taste of something so you decided that you will murder other people then. That's just great." Sarcasm had always been a habit that I used too often. I could hear it creeping into my tone as I spoke and I knew that I was annihilating any chance of leaving this place alive.

Aro didn't seem to pick up on my sarcasm, or maybe he just didn't care. "Would you mind if I touched you?" He asked slowly after a moments pause.

"Um," I looked around and took a step back. "Why are you asking though? All the other vampires just go ahead and poke me all they like." I rubbed my arm where the guy in the gown had poked me. It still hurt.

Aro smiled. "Do you know that all vampires have a special gift of some kind?" I stared at him unsure of whether or not to say something.

An awkward silence hung in the air. I hate silences so I spoke first. "No, I didn't know, but why are you telling me? Do you have ADD or something? Because you totally just changed the subject on me, you know."

Aro chuckled again but this time it was slightly less creepy because I could see him. It still was creepy though, don't get me wrong. I didn't like him or anything.

"My gift, or talent as you might say, is that whenever I touch someone all of their thoughts they ever thought of enter my mind. If it were like reading a book, I would be able to read the whole book at once. The only drawback is that I must touch the person to see their thoughts." Aro sighed a sad sigh as if that were something he would always dream of changing.

"Will I still keep my thoughts if you touch me?" I wondered out loud. "Or will you steal them and leave me without any real memories?"

"No, no, my little pet." He patted my head affectionately. "You will still have them. I just touched you, did you notice? Can you still think?"

I thought about it. "I think so…" Even to my own ears that sounded weird. "I mean, of course I can if I am still talking. Do you know everything about me now?"

Aro smiled and ignored my question. "What is your favorite color?" He asked very randomly.

"Color…oh, I don't know." I never really like a particular color too much more than another. "Turquoise or sea green. Why does it matter? Can't you just read through my thoughts."

**So...what is up? Can some peeps give me a bit of R&Ring here! I know there is at least one person who has read this! there has to be! are you there? Echo! Echo echoechoechoechoechoecho...okay...no one is reading! **

**Oh...before I forget...this story is for you Kristina!**


	2. Chapter 2

APOV:

Another exciting day had gone by. It was funny but it didn't seem like the interviews lasted as long as I would have hoped. Some of the people's thoughts were moderately ridiculous. One man thought that I was his great grandfather come back from the dead.

I had chosen my two pets though, which was the important thing. The first person I chose was the once I met initially. I had grown fond of her sardonic attitude towards life. She was very beautiful as well, which would be nice if we were ever to make her one of us.

Her hair is a light auburn color that was also seen towards the center of her eyes, which were green. I found it particularly attractive when people had two colors in their eyes. Vampires only had red and black, which were very dull colors if I say so myself.

I suppose I would have to change a few things about her though. Her outlook on our kind would have to be altered as well as her clothes. She would have to wear more formal clothing, her jeans looked like they had been through a great ordeal. She must be very poor if she couldn't afford to buy new jeans. I knew she would be far happier here where we could buy her anything she wanted.

For some strange reason, I wanted to make her happy. Normally, the only feeling I feel for people are curiosity or hunger, depending on their blood type. I prefer people with type A blood type for some reason. It smells better to me.

The other person I chose was a man in his twenties. He said his name was Terrance but his thoughts said otherwise. Apparently his mother was a giant fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and named him Strider. I am not sure why he doesn't like that name, but I amused him by calling him his middle name like he asked.

At first I didn't think to choose him, but the comment he made about me looking like that guy from Star wars was exceptionally amusing.

I tapped my fingers on the table and hummed a little tune while I thought about my new human pets. After a while, I stood up and called for Marcus. He came looking annoyed and I think that my calling him interrupted one of his exquisite affairs with whichever vampires that he had chosen today.

"Yes, Aro?" His voice mirrored his irritation. "You called?"

"I did indeed!" I smiled at him knowing that my pleasant mood would aggravate him further. "This is why you are here!"

Marcus sighed impatiently.

"I am sure you are wondering why I called you." Marcus rolled his eyes. He must have picked up this habit from a younger vampire.

"That I why I am here, Aro." He glanced at the door. "Now if you don't mind, could you just tell me why I'm here instead of playing one of your little games? I'm not in the mood today for your nonsense."

I tutted while keeping the smile on my face. "Marcus, Marcus. It isn't as if you don't have enough time. Why are you in such a bad mood?"

"Aro." Marcus looked to the ceiling. "Get to the point."

"Oh yes!" I remembered. "As I was saying, you should escort Kristina and Terrance to their rooms and take the others out to the dinning room."

"And how am I supposed to be able to differentiate the two people from the rest of them." He asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I stood up gleefully. "I shall help you."

And so we headed off to the rooms where we were keeping the humans. I peeked in each room and looked for my new pets. When a few saw me they looked at me with fear, still in shock from the experience of meeting me. Finally I reached Terrance's room.

"Ah, Terrance!" I exclaimed gleefully. "See, Marcus! I told you I would find him!"

"Very well done, Aro." Marcus said dryly.

"Thank you very much." I proclaimed and walked over to Terrance's bed and sat down on it. He looked at me funnily. "Terrance, we will be moving you to a new room very shortly. In fact, very shortly means right now!"

He eyed me unsure of whether to say something and looked to Marcus to see if he would help him. Marcus was looking very intently at the ceiling to avoid this little undeserving human's gaze.

"So, Terrance." I hoped merrily off his bed. "Shall we take up your belongings and other such stuff to your exquisite new room?"

"Erm," He glanced around the room. "I don't really have anything in here that is mine."

"Fantastic!" I beamed. "Nothing is always easier to carry."

Terrance glanced to Marcus again, but Marcus still was avoiding his stares. I would have to complement Marcus on how funny he could be sometimes.

I walked to the door and paused when only Marcus was following. "Come on," I waved to him to follow. "You haven't got all day."

"Don't you mean 'we haven't got all day'?" He asked following us.

"Not in the slightest. I have forever." I put a little bounce in my step. I liked how my cloak would swish when I did that. I think it gives me a very regal look.

For the rest of the time we walked in silence. Well, not really. I was humming to a jazzy song and Marcus' shoes clacked against the floor loudly. Once in a while Terrance would scuffle or trip which made him seem more like that one human, Bella. I was growing to understand why Edward was so fond of his pet. They were cute occasionally. It was worth the resistance.

At last we arrived to the suite that was to be Terrance's

"This is you're new room." Pointing to the door, I looked at his face. "Isn't this splendid! Go on. You can open the door."

He looked like he would rather jump into a shark pit than open the door, but he obliged. When he saw the interior he gasped. It was very unique if I do sat so myself. Frank Lloyd Right handcrafted each piece of furniture. I used to have an acquaintance in Alaska that was good friends with him.

"Do you like it?" I clapped my hands with glee. "I do like decorating, it is so fun to mix and match. I thought you would like this room better because of the colors. I picked that shade of navy blue out by myself."

Marcus nudged the human inside the door and began to close it on him. I put my foot between the door and the wall though because I had more to say.

"Before we leave," I pushed my head in. "I must say a few trivial things. First, the door to your right is a bathroom. We had to design that special because we normally don't make those here. Second…"

"Wait," Terrance looked confused. "Why don't you have bathrooms?"

I laughed. "You are the comedian, aren't you!" I chuckled a bit more. "Anywho, there will be a charming young lady in the room next to you and that wood door to the side of your bed will allow you two humans to mingle and talk about human things. I think that is all. Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah," Marcus open the door a bit more so he could see his expression. "What's your name again?"

"Silly me." I pointed to myself. "I'm Aro and this smashing man to my left is Marcus. Anything else?"

He nodded. "Why do you keep calling me human?"

"You are one, right?" I chortled at my own little joke.

"Well, yes." Terrance bit his lower lip. "But aren't you?"

"What a smart little human we have!" I looked to Marcus. "Don't you find him witty?"

"Terribly." He said in a bored voice. "Now if this 'witty' human won't mind, we have more important business to attend to than conversing with your kind. So if you excuse us."

Marcus slammed the door. I was lucky to get my head out in time. I was thinking that he would have wanted my head to be caught in there.

"Marcus, Marcus." I sighed and shook my head. "When are you going to learn?"

"When are you going to learn not to repeat my name twice?" He growled.

I just chuckled. "We should get the divine Kristina. What do you think I should name her?"

"How 'bout 'Stupid Human' or something along those lines?" Marcus grumbled.

Shaking my head, I ignored Marcus' comment. "Let's check on her, shall we?"

Marcus snorted. "Do I have a choice?"

"Nope." I hopped along with a skip in my step. "Not at all."

"Great." He complained sarcastically.

"You are a lot like this human you will be meeting." I smiled at the similarities. "You both love to hate things. Also, you both amuse me."

"What doesn't?" Marcus muttered under his breath. "To you, everyone is part of a freak show."

**A/n: Aro is hard to write. I will never do a fanfic about him again. I can't stand the way he is. Not the way he acts…that is fun. But his thinking is too hard. I can't think the same way as people 1000 years ago. Sorry if he is ooc because of that.**

**Anyways…this is all updated and corrected with much help of EntrustingLove. She is amazing at using words. Sigh. I wish I could be a walking talking thesaurus. I am more of a walking talking potato head. All that is up there are spuds! Lol…okay I am not funny.**


	3. Chapter 3

KPOV:

There was no clock in the room so I was unsure of how long I had been sitting here. This place was more boring than a doctor's office. I had resigned myself to counting the lines on the wallpaper. Right now I was at 2495 and I was only just finishing counting on one wall.

My fingers stumbled on a line and I was unsure of whether I had already counted it. I debated whether or not it was worth starting over for. After a moment I gave up and threw myself onto the bed.

This place was intimidating and gave me Goosebumps all over my arms. It didn't look like a Hollywood haunted house but I could sense that it was not normal.

The room looked like something from a cheap motel without the telephone, TV, radio, clock or mirrors. I wasn't sure if they didn't want me to have any communication with the outside world or if they were just cheap. Also, I wasn't sure if the lack of mirrors was because vampires couldn't be seen in them, or if they hadn't thought I might want to see how I looked.

When I added everything up, I knew less than I acted like I did. The only thing I was certain of was that I wanted to go home and curl up next to my golden retriever.

There was I knock on the door and I leaped up instinctively.

"Come in," I said loudly before muttering under my breath, "it's not like you wouldn't make yourself at home anyways."

I heard a familiar laugh and was slightly surprised to see Aro standing in my doorway. "You are as sociable as ever, my pet."

"Don't call me that." I grumbled. I thought that the word 'pet' was derogatory in any situation. Especially when used on people being held against their will.

"Oh?" He smiled in a disturbing way. I wondered why he was always so pleasant. "Does my little name bother you?"

"Yes." I grimaced.

Another voice broke in. "She is as hostile as you said, Aro." I peered around Aro to see a cloaked figure standing with his arms crossed.

"Why would I be hostile?" My voice was sarcastic. "I have no reason at all to be upset that you are holding me hostage and have diabolical plans to keep me as a pet. No reason at all."

"Diabolical plans?" Aro repeated. "I have never been called diabolical before. Thank you."

I groaned, not out loud of course but in my head. An idea came into my head, if I just shunned him he might let me just be alone to wallow. Solitude, although not something I would normally like, would be far better than to be teased by two vampires.

"Anyways," Aro didn't seem to notice my silence. "It is time for you to see your new room."

I stared at him with what I hoped was a stony glare although I probably just looked dazed.

After a long an uncomfortable wait, Aro said something.

"Well, let's go." His smile was so bright that it hurt my eyes. "I would rather not waste my time in this dismal room."

"If it looks so bad," I broke my vow of silence. "Why don't you change it?"

He brushed it off. "This is only a temporary room for people who are going to be killed, anyways,"

"Great." I sighed even though I knew that I was going to be eaten. "So, when are you going to drain my blood?"

"Oh dear, no." Aro chuckled slightly at my expression. "That's why we're moving you to a more permanent room. We don't plan on killing you."

"Yet." The man behind Aro added with a grin. May I point out that it was very disturbing?

"Now, now, Marcus." Aro made a tutting noise. I was surprised he wasn't waving his finger at the man in the cloak. "Don't be scaring my pet. I won't have it."

"Please stop calling me that." Frustrated, my voice was louder than I expected.

"Alright, Kristina." Aro said my name as if it was a hard word to say. "Is there any possibility that we could change your name a bit?"

"No." I glared.

"Are you sure?" He tapped his chin in a way that suggested heavy thinking. "We could change it to anything you want!"

"How 'bout Kristina?" I pursed my lips and looked determinedly at Aro. These vampires could take away my freedom but I refused to let them take away my name.

"Alright, we can discuss this later." Aro said loftily as if he had all the time in the world to chat about things. "Now, we should go to your new room."

He turned out the door expecting me to follow. For a moment I thought about what would happen if I just stayed here, but then I decided the consequences would be worse than if I followed.

Just because I was following didn't mean I was subjecting meekly. For the entire time I was emotionless as Aro bantered on about life in the Voulturi. The other vampire looked fed up with Aro and I could imagine him plotting ways to make Aro shut up.

After a long while, we reached a door.

"Open it." Aro gestured to the door. I wondered if it was one of those tricks where something pops out at you when you open the door, but then I figured Aro wouldn't want his 'pet' to have a heart attack.

To say I was mildly surprised to see a gorgeous room that looked like it was designed in heaven would b an understatement. I was shocked to the point where I couldn't speak. Even though I tried to make it look like my stillness was from indifference, I wasn't doing well.

"I thought you might like it." Aro beamed and looked around. He pointed out things that he found interesting and showed me what the doors inside the room went to. One of the doors led to the 'other human pet' and I was unsure of whether I wanted to see who else was chosen.

When I didn't say anything, Aro left the room. I sat down on the bed and admired the beauty of it all. This room made my other room look like dirt.

Everything was a light turquoise other than a few things that were light pinks. Normally I would hate pink but when it was used so sparingly next to the beautiful turquoise, it was lovely.

There was a canopy over the bed in the exact way I had wanted my bed to have one when I was nine years old.

Everything was perfect.

This only made me hate the room. Every detail that was just right gave me no reason to hate these vampires. I wanted to hate them. Hating was easier than admitting to myself things that I didn't want to admit.

I decided to go and see what the person next door to me was doing. Hopefully I could make a friend out of this situation. Maybe a friend wouldn't be so bad to have when you are alone with only vampires for company.

Perhaps it was foolish of me, but inwardly I hoped that I could have someone to tell secrets to. I always wanted to have a best friend that you could tell everything to, paint nails together and complain about boys with.

I knocked on the door and hoped that the person wouldn't be like me and say something mean.

I heard a muffled, "Come in." I entered slowly and saw a room similar to mine with a dark blue color scheme with hints of light brown. I was surprised to see a very hot guy sitting in a soft looking chair reading a book.

"Hey." I smiled trying to play it cool. "I'm Kristina."

I waited for him to introduce himself but he just stared at me. I would like to say that he was admiring my beautiful self although most likely I just had something on my face.

"Erm…hey." He said awkwardly after a while. "I'm…T-terrance."

"Nice to meet you." I breathed a sigh of relief that he had spoken to me. It would have been uncomfortable if he hadn't.

"Yeah." Terrance closed his book without looking at the page number, as I would have done.

"So, we're both in the same boat." I sighed. "Stuck as pets to sadistic blood-suckers who must have some veiled agenda for keeping us like this."

"W-wait, what?" He looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh." I said softly. "You don't know."

I updated him on the vampire situation. He seemed doubtful at first but after a while he began to believe me. I ranted on about the injustice of being made pets for a while and I thought I saw Terrance resisting a smile.

"And so," I finished up my ramble. "Here we are, stuck as pets for insane vampires."

Terrance looked up. "It's so hard to believe this is real, you know…so hard."

"I know." I exhaled slowly.

For a moment we sat in silence. Sometime while I was ranting I must have sat down, although I hadn't noticed it until now.

"What is going to happen now?" Terrance asked me.

"Who knows?" I bit my lower lip slightly. "Have they tried to change your name yet?"

"No," Terrance looked surprised. "Not yet at least. Although, Aro looked at me funnily when I told him my name."

"Did he touch you?" I asked.

Terrance thought about it. "Sort of."

I nodded. Aro must have read his thoughts and found something about his name.

"Is Terrance your real name?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Yes…well sort of." Terrance looked defensive. "It's my middle name."

I looked at him intently. "What's your first?"

He blushed and mumbled something about me not needing to know. I let it go, which was something that I wouldn't have normally done. Today wasn't very normal for me though, so exceptions can be made.

**Any ideas for a plot? I need them!**


	4. Chapter 4

TPOV:

From the second she walked in, I was head over heals. She was funny and sarcastic, both of these things were requirements for a good girlfriend, and she was beautiful.

She didn't have the common ideals of beauty but she still looked amazing. Her hair was light brown and at the end it curled out slightly. I looked at her lips for the entire time that she talked to me because they had a cute shape. But her eyes were the thing that made her look so…amazing.

They were so deep and warm, I felt like I could stare at them forever and not fully recognize all the colors. Colors were an important thing to me because I am an artist.

When I was a little child, I had liked to mix colors with paint just to see what I could make. Now I liked to mix colors and use them to create a painting. Often the paint would be more on my hands than on the canvas, but I liked to keep the paint there anyways.

I dropped my gaze from Kristina to my hands. They had very little paint on them because it had washed of from the days I had spent not painting. I wished that this place would have anything that I could use to paint with.

"So…" Kristina smiled. "Do you have any ideas to get us out of here?"

"Out?" I repeated stupidly. Today being stupid was becoming very common. Sadly, today was one of the days where I wanted to impress people, namely Kristina.

"Yeah." She fiddled with the ends of her hair absent-mindedly. "We can't stay in this place forever. They would eat us."

"Suck our blood, technically." I corrected. "They wouldn't eat us. They would just drain our blood until we died."

"Gross." She scrunched up her nose. "I wonder what they would do with our bodies."

"I'm betting they wouldn't bury us." I frowned.

"Maybe," She said thoughtfully. "I mean, we are their pets. I buried my cat, so why wouldn't they bury us?"

"I doubt it, though." I noted that when she thought her right eyebrow raised slightly. "They would probably not bother to get a gravestone if they did bury us though."

"This is exactly why we need to escape." Kristina had a very intense look on her face. I think the word was determined, but there was some other emotion that was hiding. "We can't be turned into vampire snacks. We have to find a way to get out of here."

I admired her spirit but didn't think there was a possible way to escape. "What do you propose we do then?"

"Is the door unlocked?" She looked at the door and I realized that I hadn't checked to see if they locked it.

Kristina went over to the door and twisted the doorknob. It swung open with ease.

"You're a genius!"

She blushed and looked like she was trying to find a good comeback. When she could think of nothing she just mumbled, "Whatever."

I followed her out the door and realized that I had no idea where we were. I hoped that Kristina knew, but I had that sinking feeling that told me we were getting ourselves lost.

We walked for a few minutes before realizing our sense of direction had gotten confused in the turns of the small hallways.

"What now?" I asked.

She ignored my question. "This place is cramped. I can touch the ceiling for once in my life." She showed me.

I laughed. "The nicest thing you could call this place is cozy, although it really isn't. The creepy-factor of it cancels out any coziness."

"Was that a joke?" She turned around to look at me. "I didn't know that you could say anything funny."

"Yeah, well." I felt embarrassed for seeming so serious. "I don't have a good sense of humor when I am confused."

She smiled and continued walking. "My humor becomes more sarcastic when I am pressured. Bad habit. I know."

"You're funny though." I said truthfully. "It's a good habit because it makes people like you."

"Well, look where that brought me." She sighed. "Some ancient albino vampire decided that my sarcasm was cute and now I am his pet."

Just then Aro walked around the corner surprising the both of us.

**The END….jk! Next chapter will be out sometime this year. Maybe tomorrow if I am lucky. Anywho, There seem to be a lot of people that like this. Strange…..I never thought that this was going to be like this. So…….R&R if you are in the mood. I won't force you but I do love getting those emails that say I have reviews. It makes me happy! Then I smile. Then other people smile…and then we are all happy!**

**Conclusion: Reviewing will make the entire world happier.**


	5. Chapter 5

APOV:

"Oh, dear." I repressed a laugh. Their faces held such shock at seeing me. Terrance looked like he was going to die and Kristina was looking anywhere but at me. "What have we here? You weren't trying to run away were you?"

"Not at all." Kristina looked at Terrance. "We were just…um…going for a walk."

"I will have to get you two exercise machines." I knew they were lying but I played along with them. "What are those things that you walk on called? Walkers? Running machines?"

"Do you mean treadmills?" Terrance offered.

"That's the name." I laughed. "I never use them because they go too slow for me."

"Do you run often?" Kristina wrung her hands. I knew from reading her mind before that she did this only when she was planning something.

"Occasionally, although I prefer to be driven around to places if I must go somewhere." I hardly ever had to leave this place, so I had only been in a car a dozen times. It was absolutely exhilarating, although the last time I went must have been a decade ago. The automobiles must have improved since then.

No one spoke and I could see my human pets becoming nervous and jumpy.

"I would highly advise," I tried to look serious, "that you should stay inside of your rooms. Not all of my…friends, are as kind as I am. Some of them would like to…" How could I phrase this without frightening them?

"Eat us." Kristina answered for me.

"If you think of it that way." I shrugged and took their hands in mine. They were both so warm. "I find that if you think about things like that for too long, you become depressed. Many of the people here have too much time to think and so they are constantly moody."

"So we are supposed to be optimistic about the fact that we are caged as pets and food?" Kristina shook her hand from out of mine. It was a shame because her hand felt warmer than Terrance's.

"Come on." Sighing, I took the lead. "Follow me."

I led them back to their rooms, which wasn't hard because they had only traveled a few yards from it. I opened their doors for them and they meekly went in. I thought I saw a brief exchange of glances between my two new pets before I left.

For some reason this bothered me.

I headed back to my chambers while thinking intensely about why they were so unhappy. I could bring in a few more humans to keep them company, but Caius wouldn't allow it. He was very against taking in just two.

Marcus came up to me breaking me from my thoughts.

"Aro, you have visitors." He said in his slow voice. When he wasn't sneering he could be charming. I suppose that was what gained him his suitors of both the male and female variety.

"Who?" I couldn't think of anyone arranging a visit.

"The Cullen's pet as well as a few from the family." He spat out the word pet as if it was vile.

"Oh, splendid." I smiled broadly with pure glee. "What great news! Do you think that Bella will get along with my new pets?"

Marcus gave the impression that he didn't care. His eyes were void of emotion.

"What's the date?" I asked him.

"It is sometime in July." Marcus glanced at his pocket watch. "Mid-July, I believe."

"What year?"

"2006." Marcus looked away from his watch and began to turn it over in his fingers. "Can I leave now?"

"Say may I." I taunted him. He hated when I corrected him like this, which was why it was so entertaining.

"May I please leave now?" He grumbled.

"Because you said please," He turned to go but I stopped him by lightly placing my hand on his shoulder. "Before you go, however, I would like for you to make sure the Cullen family is welcomed." I added quickly. "Oh, and make sure their pet feels at home too."

"Yes, Aro." Marcus ran out quickly and slammed a few doors on his way out.

I walked to my chair full of excitement. I wondered if I should get my pets now. Standing up, I clapped my hands and a new vampire came. I told him to fetch my to human pets and he nodded before going off to do so. Only once I had sent him did I start to worry about his control. He was only recently changed and I hoped he resisted a bite from my new favorite humans.

I couldn't worry for long though because just at that moment, the door opened.

**A/N: I am getting to the plot! It's only chapter 5. That is a new record for me. I normally don't ever have a plot.**

**Review please!**


	6. Chapter 6

An: I am TEMPORARILY going to discontinue this story. You may wonder why…well I will tell you why…I am sooooooooo close to finishing up my other story 'Jacob's Love' I really want to wrap that up before I continue with this one. Don't worry. It is just a few chapters from being complete. My problem is that my spell check has gone funky and some words that I know are wrong won't show up as being wrong. So I have to double check my spelling a lot and that slows me down.

**I will write one more chapter right now, but I am warning you: I am sick…so my brain is slow and my writing stinks. Other than that…enjoy one last chapter for a long (or depending on spelling…short) time.**

**Have a nice day! Have a muffin!**

APOV:

I saw Edward and Alice Cullen enter first, and Isabella followed behind them warily. She glanced around the room and shuddered. Edward slid an arm around her in a protective and calming way. He was such a good owner and she was such a good pet for him.

"Welcome again to the Volturi!" I outstretched my arms in a hospitable gesture. "We are glad to have you back, of course. But may I inquire why you are still human, Bella?"

He brown eyes looked at me with a mixture of disgust and fear. She had very nice eyes but I thought my pet Kristina had nicer ones.

"We're here to inform you that we will be changing her after she graduates from high school." Edward pushed her gently behind him so that he was able to shield her. "We are telling you this so that you wouldn't send the guards after her early and lead to any…mistakes."

"Mistakes?" I laughed. "Edward, you do have a knack for words."

His face remained impassive and he looked as if he was fighting down emotions. Alice stepped up and raised her hand.

"May I show you something?" She tilted her head to the side ever so slightly. She looked like a pixie but with dreadfully horrid hair. If only it were long.

I nodded and she slipped her hand into mine. Visions flooded my mind and I saw one more vividly that others. Alice had been having this vision for quite some time.

_Bella stood in the middle of a clearing in the sunlight. He skin was shining in the way that vampire's skin did, but she didn't have the qualities of a vampire other than the pale skin._

_Edward held her hand and they stood staring at a blank spot in front of them. They appeared to be waiting for something to happen. They're faces were patient and they looked as if they were content to stand there for the entire day._

_He whispered something in her ear and the scene changed._

_Caius was walking down a corridor in the Volturi halls. He had a determined look to him as if he were on a mission to do some important task. The sound of his feet reverberated through the halls._

_He stood in front of a door but blocked it so that I was unable to see which door he was at. He glanced over his shoulders to see if anyone was around before turning the doorknob and pushing it open a crack._

_A female vampire whose face wasn't turned to me grabbed his shoulder and spoke to him. The sounds she was making were foreign and unfamiliar. It sounded like Italian but was incomprehensible to me even though I understood Italian. I briefly thought about how Alice couldn't speak Italian and wondered if that was why it was impossible for me to understand._

_The woman seemed to be confronting him, but then it changed again._

_I saw myself talking to Kristina in English. I couldn't hear words though but I could see my mouth moving. What I saw next surprised me. I kissed her gently on the cheek and she blushed before everything changed again._

Many visions flitted through my head until it was hard for me to tell which ones had already happened and which ones would happen. There were many of the Cullens and I saw Bella graduating and her being bitten by Edward. I saw Rosalie and Emmett having a romantic moment and Carlisle saving a young child's life. Each one stood out but was subdued as I saw everything at once. Every thought Alice had ever had darted through my head.

I saw happy things as well as natural disasters that caused many people to die. I saw Paris Hilton being dragged back to jail again and another war breaking out over a land dispute. I watched horrible things happening and shook my head to be rid of them.

I had confirmed one thing through this, however. Edward's pet would be a vampire. I had seen visions of her becoming one in many different ways, but the outcome was always the same.

Edward growled across the room. "May we leave now?" Alice shot him a disapproving look. "Please?" He added.

"You came all this way and want to leave again? Don't be ridiculous." I shook my head. "Besides, you simply must meet my new pets!"

"New pets?" Bella speculated out loud while Edward growled deeper as he read my thoughts.

"Yes." I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. "Here they come right now!"

**R&R! I will heart you forever! I save all of my reviews so you will be remembered forever!**


	7. Chapter 7

KPOV:

The vampire in front of me kept throwing me weird glances. He had a strange look in his eyes and reminded me of the stalker that lived on my old street. The stalker on my old street would follow me around...in front of me. It was weird. I would be walking to Blockbuster and he would be walking twenty feet in front of me and tossing me looks over his shoulder every five seconds.

I wondered what he was doing now without me there. Maybe he has a new stalk-ee.

Terrance held my hand while we walked and it felt oddly comforting. His hands were rough and big, but they were warm. Occasionally he would glance at me too, but not in a stalker-ish way.

The vampire opened a door and led us into a room. I noticed Aro first, but then I saw the others. There was a short woman who reminded me of the fairy in that one movie from the seventies. She had the same short black hair and was the same size. Even though I was short, I was taller than her.

There were two others as well. A decent looking guy with copper colored hair was holding onto a fragile looking girl with brown hair. In comparison to the vampires in the room, she was very tan, but she still was pale. There was a possibility that she was a vampire or a human.

The guy holding the brunette growled. "You can't be serious, Aro. This is one of your most…"

"I know!" Aro looked at us happily. "Don't you think my idea is fabulous? Now our pets can have play dates!"

The girl looked like she was about to be sick. The guy pulled her closer in a supposed-to-be-comforting way. I could only feel pity for her. At least I could hold my own against some vampires.

"Bella," Aro looked at the girl. "Meet my new pets. Terrance and Bella Two! I named her after…"

"My name is NOT Bella Two!" I cried out indignatly. "That's ridiculous. I told you that I am keeping my own…"

"Not Bella?" Aro looked at me again. "Are you sure you don't want to take my offer on Danielle? That is a very pretty…"

"No!" I tried not to feel disgusted. If he could read my mind, why didn't he realize that I was capable of thinking? "I'm not a dog. I want to be called by my own name."

"Alright." He looked back to the scared human. "Bella… meet my two pets…Terrance and Kristina." He emphasized my name.

The vampires next to 'Bella' looked at me with pity. They're eyes were very weird. They must have gotten those colored contacts to disguise the red eyes. At least they tried to blend in to normal society.

"H-hello." Bella muttered.

"Aro, may I have a word with you?" The boy next to Bella looked furious. "Alone, if you will?"

"Certainly, Edward." Aro smiled. "Everyone else…leave. Take Bella and my delicate pets up to the new room that is for them. I'm sure they will be happy to frolic there and talk about human things."

The vampire who had led us here was now eyeing Bella with hunger. "Yeah…"

The other vampire with red hair growled. "Aro…please get another vampire to take them…I don't trust his control around Bella."

"It will be perfectly fine." Aro brushed him off. "He knows the rules about the pets. The same rules apply to your pet too."

"She isn't my pet." His jaw was clenched tightly.

"Don't worry, Edward." The small vampire interrupted. "I will go with them. Bella will be safe."

"See?" Aro looked at Edward as if he had thought of sending the small vampire with us all along. "Everything will be fine."

The small vampire walked off with us and kept an eye on Bella at all times. I wondered how she could put up with that. At least we were ignored some of the time.

"So…." I said awkwardly. "How long have the blo-I mean vampires, kept you as a 'pet'?" I made air quotes around the word.

"I'm not a pet." She flinched. "I choose to be with Edward because I love him. The other vampires just don't understand why he won't change me…I don't really either. His excuse is stupid…"

She trailed off in thought. The vampire with her looked like she agreed with Bella.

"Interesting." I said, not understanding. "So….who are you?"

"Alice." She said shortly.

"Okay…" That was a heck lot of information there. (sarcasm) "What's your problem…I mean…talent?"

I saw Bella's mouth turn up slightly but Alice's went down at the same time.

"I see the future." She said unwillingly.

"Ah. Very nice." I imitated an Aro voice. "So, can I call you Madame Alice or something? Can you read my palm and tell me when and which vampire will eat me? It would be really helpful."

"First of all," she looked offended. "Don't call me Madame anything. Second, vampires don't eat people…"

"You drain their blood, yeah yeah…whatever."

She frowned more and Bella was outright laughing now. It wasn't that funny.

"I can't believe Aro actually took humans in…and to believe he might like…" She muttered too quietly for me to hear the rest.

"How do you put up with vampires?" I asked Bella curiously. "Doesn't it creep you out?"

"No, I love them." She smiled happily. "Well…some of them anyways. When you fall in love nothing else matters. It doesn't matter if they are a vampire or a werewolf or a human. You just love them."

Terrance nodded like he understood but I just gapped. Who would have typed her for a hopeless romantic? That Edward guy must have a great personality or something because I couldn't ever imagine a vampire kissing me. I tired to imagine letting Aro kiss me but that thought is disgusting to the nth degree.

I shuddered. And Terrance misinterpreted my shudder.

"Are you cold?" I pulled me closer to him and I did feel warmer. Alice looked at us with a strange expression and Bella smiled.

"Thanks." I grinned up at him and seeing him smile back made my heart flutter. Luckily no one in this room could hear my heart.

"Here's the room." The vampire who reminded me of my stalker back home grinned creepily.

Bella went in first and Alice tried to follow but the vampire put a restraining hand on her.

"Uh uh." He shook his head. "You aren't part of the Volturi and therefore you can't enter. I am sure you could talk to Aro about joining…"

From the inside of the room Bella said, "Alice, just go back to Edward. We'll be fine."

Alice hesitated. "Fine."

Terrance guided me in quickly and eyed the Vampire who was staring at me like I was dinner. The scary thing was that I didn't doubt he would eat me. He closed the door and we looked around.

There was a vampire in the corner watching us with a happy grin. She wasn't creepy however, unless you count the I-want-to-give-you-a-makeover glint to her eyes scary. How did I know she wanted to give us makeovers worthy of a bad television show? Maybe the hairbrush in her hand or the makeup spread out on the table next to her.

Terrance fidgeted as he was looking at her.

"You must be Aro's pets!" She squealed in a preppy cheerleader voice.

"No...we're the pizza delivery." I said sarcastically.

"Sarcasm isn't flattering on a lady." She said tartly.

"It's better than being…" I started but she cut me off with a gasp of horror.

"Mon dieu! Your hair!" She covered her mouth and appeared next to me in an instant. "It is so horrible!"

"Thanks." I said sarcasticly. "You really help my self-esteem, you know."

"Do not fear!" She sat me down on a chair. "I can save it. I worked as a beauty stylist for many years in the best of salons in France. Nothing is too challenging for moi!"

Bella giggled and gave me a thumbs up. I stuck my tongue out at her and turned to Terrance for help. He looked confused and was no help.

"You're next, dear." The crazy stylist waved a curling iron at Bella who stopped laughing immediately and looked horrified.

"I don't need a makeover. Alice does enough of those already." She looked at the vampire with fear.

"But obviously it hasn't done enough." She stuck some pins into my skull and I swore. Somehow she managed to put a bar of soap in my mouth before I could realize she had one. "Swearing is unattractive. How do expect to get a man if you are cursing all the time? When I am done with you…you will have been transformed. Once an ugly duck now a swan."

"Hey!" I spat out the soap and tried to get rid of the taste. "I'm not an ugly duck and I don't want to be called so. Although you may be unaware of it, women in this day and age do not have to conform to society's image of beauty."

She ignored me. "Other pet…yes you. There are some magazines over there next to the futon. You can read them while I give them a transformation."

I wanted to yell 'Terrance you traitor!' but the crazy vampire was not applying lipstick, lipliner and lip gloss on my mouth. She did it so fast I was in shock.

"Close your eyes." She ordered. I obeyed scared of what would happen if I didn't. She scared me more than all of the Volturi put together.

"What's your name, lady?" I asked trying to imagine her being a child with friends. The only image I could come up with was of a little blond girl in ringlets and lace playing dress up with china dolls.

"Don't say 'lady' in that tone." She padded my face with something sickly sweet smelling. "And my name is Geneviève Margaux Sylvie Agnew."

"Do you have a nickname, by any chance?" I asked hopeful.

She snorted in a ladylike way. When I snorted, I sounded like a pig. "Non. Nicknames are unladylike."

"And god forbid anything should be unladylike." I muttered.

"Open your eyes." She ordered and approached me with an eyelash curler and mascara wand.

"Heck no!" I backed away. "I'll let you attack me with gunk and turn my hair into a pile of curly French fries, but I refuse to let you touch me with that metal contraption. You could poke my eye out."

"Pfuit. Don't be ridiculous." She came towards me. "I've never made a mistake when it comes to things like this and I don't plan on beginning now. So stop moving and make it easier for me. There will be less chance of me 'poking your eye' if you stop blinking."

I only let her at me because it was unlikely she would give up and I liked my vision.

To my right I saw Bella shiver.

"There!" She admired her work. "Now all I have to do is set your hair up."

"What? I thought you already did my hair." I looked at it. "It's fine."

"Don't be silly." She began to prod my skull some more. "I had to let it sit for a while before I could complete it."

When at last she seemed satisfied she stood back.

"Tres manifique!" She handed me a mirror and I looked at myself.

I looked…like a preppy cheerleader ready for a party. It scared me.

"Great. I look….um…nice." I gave her back the mirror. "Bella's turn."

"No!" She pleaded. "I'm okay!"

Geneviève stared at her excitedly and approached her. Vampire strength shouldn't be teamed up with makeup.

I snuck over to Terrance and found him staring at me instead of a magazine. His mouth was open and he looked surprised.

"I hate you for not saving me back there." I glowered at him but he still stared. "What? Is it really that bad?" I touched my face.

"N-n-n-no." He cleared his throat. "You look…you look…wow."

I shrugged. "Yeah…I know. I look like a ditzy cheerleader whose brains are fried due to over usage of hairspray and chemicals called 'makeup.'"

He shook his head. "No…not that. You look…"

"I look like her." I pointed to the French vampire who was giving poor Bella a elegant and extreme updo. "Minus the blonde and pretty part."

"Just minus the blonde." He stuttered. "You look more than pretty."

**Fluff! I hate makeover shows. They are all the same. Crazy…you know? i fixed the problem though. No more symbols! **


	8. Chapter 8

TPOV:

I had never been so speechless in my life. She stood there completely unaware of how stunning she looked. Kristina was good-looking without any primping, but now she looked like an angel. The funny part was that she thought she looked bad. I had always thought girls loved makeovers, but both Bella and Kristina squirmed when it was being done.

Rather than reading a magazine, I watched Kristina. She was muttering angrily.

"Stupid stereo-types of women conforming to the image…" She glared daggers at Geneviève. "Bad influence…walking boutique Barbie…."

I tried not to laugh. It was good to know that the hairspray hadn't affected her brains. She was still the same.

"I'm finished!" Geneviève stood back and clapped her hands. "I have transformed two hideous humains féminins into belle princesse."

"Who are you calling ugly, you cliché brainless fashonetta?" Kristina looked furious. I agreed with her that she wasn't ugly at all before, but didn't speak up because I remembered that that 'brainless fashonetta' was a vampire.

"Insults are not flattering." She tutted sweetly. "I see we have to have a petit charm school for you humans. Aro will be so happy when he sees the progress."

"Thanks." Bella looked at Kristina angrily. "Charm school…uck."

"Uck?" Geneviève looked at Bella surprised. "I see I have my work set out for me then."

I watched her set them up in front of a lavishly set coffee table with dozens of forks, spoons, knives and other strange tools for eating. She forced them to eat a ten course meal and critically remarked on their behavior. Bella kept dropping the forks and spilt her water. Kristina was yelled at for crossing her legs and using the wrong spoon for soup.

I looked at them and could only feel glad that Geneviève didn't make me eat too. I would be worse at manners than both of them because I wouldn't be able to pull my eyes off of Kristina. A countless number of accidents could occur.

When they finally finished eating, Geneviève told them they could have a short break. Bella looked to tired to move from her chair, but Kristina got out of hers as soon as she could.

"That…that…ooh!" She shook with rage. "She makes all women look bad. For years women have fought to be shown as people instead of dolls, but just looking at her undoes everything of centuries…"

I put a finger over her mouth and stopped her. She looked surprised.

"It doesn't matter." I said. "If anyone looks at you…"

"They will see a mini Geneviève!" She looked furious. "I look like a poser…a stupid air brained poser."

"That's not what I see." I couldn't believe she could think she looked bad. "I think you look beautiful."

Kristina was about to say something but Geneviève stepped in and ruined the moment.

"Ah ha!" She looked at me proudly. "You are a gentleman. You compliment so easily I could believe you meant it."

"That's because it's tr-"

"You see!" She turned to Kristina. "This is how a person should act. Reserved and kind. A perfect gentleman. At least I have one perfect human…or at least near perfect. I could change a few things…" She trailed off as she looked me over.

"Teacher's pet." Kristina mouthed at me. I suppressed a smile.

"Yes…come here boy." Geneviève patted the makeover seat. I did as I told but full of horror. Surely she wouldn't give me a makeover. That was for girls.

"At least it's not us." Bella whispered to Kristina.

"Yeah…Gen here has a favorite." Kristina giggled as I glared at her.

"What did I say about nicknames?" Geneviève reprimanded Kristina, who stopped laughing right away. It was scary how terrifying this woman could be.

"We'll just dye your hair a bit here…and clean off these filthy hands…" Geneviève began doing strange things to my nails with weird tools. I couldn't place a name for what she was doing.

"Parfait!" She stopped touching me. "You look far better."

I frowned. I wasn't expecting that she would change anything about me. She had taken off all of the paint on my hands and done something to my hair and nails.

"Now…" She turned to all of us. "Time for a new wardrobe."

All of our mouths fell open. This lady was crazy. She was sadistic in cruel ways. This was cruel and unusual torture.

One hour later

There was one good think that came from this. Only one. I got to see Kristina show off a ton of low cut tight figure hugging dresses that probably were from some famous designer I had never heard of.

After a long time, Aro came in to save us.

"Bonjour, Geneviève!" He had a perfect French accent.

They began to chat in rapid French as if we weren't there. I knew they were talking about us because they would say our names or gesture to one of us.

Ignoring them, I walked over to Kristina.

"Did I tell you how good that dress looks on you?" I gestured to the yellow sundress.

"No…that bad, huh?" She winced. "It reminds me of the dress I had to wear to my first and last talent show."

"No. I mean it looked really good." I smiled. "But what about this talent show. What did you do?"

She shuddered, maybe form the memories. "Piano."

"Are you cold?" I put an arm around her and pulled her close even though I knew she wasn't cold.

"You're really nice, you know that?" She looked up at me. "One day someone is going to take advantage of that and will rob you or something."

"Should I say thanks or be offended?"

Kristina shrugged. "You choose."

"Thanks." I smiled.

"Any time." She snuggled closer.

Suddenly I found a cooing Geneviève in my face. "Look how cute! They are adorable." We broke apart instantly, and it was a shame because it was really nice to have Kristina in my arms. "We must take them to a photo shoot for memories. You know how quickly they die. We must make sure we get pictures before they become old and ugly!"

Aro didn't say anything like I thought he would. He just wore a strange expression on his face. It was weird.

Vampires are weird in general.

**Hmmm…..what do you think? Bad or good? What should happen next? An angry confrontation between Alice and Bella about her new makeover? Should they try to escape again? Tell me! If I like your idea best I will mention you in the next chapter and do your idea!**


	9. Chapter 9

KPOV:

Geneviève began to banter to Aro sweetly. She kept batting her eyelashes and almost, dare I say it, flirting with him. It made me feel sick to my stomach.

While they were talking I began to whisper my plan of escape from this place to Terrance. He looked surprised at first but then realized that I was serious and added to my plan. Mwuhahahahaha! He has joined the dark side by allying with me.

I went to Bella and filled her in on the plan. She refused to join us though and said she would rather stay with Edward that run from him. She also mentioned something about bad luck to have Bella join. I didn't question her sanity though because she had just been tortured by the evil French woman.

"Aro?" Bella squeaked in a small voice. If this was her act of confidence, then out plan was doomed. "Could we all see Alice? I want to, um, show her my new, um, makeover."

Geneviève looked like someone told her that she could dress everyone in the world up like Gothic Lolita's. (AN: Gothic Lolita's are those people in really frilly knock off Victorian style things. They look like human china dolls but with more elaborate frills and curls.)

"We should have a show!" She told Aro something in French. "Beauty show!"

Aro laughed at her and spoke back in more French. I knew I should have paid attention to Madame Mitchell. Why did I have to pass notes during all of freshman French? Why did I switch to Latin? No one uses Latin? What was I thinking!?

After a while it seemed they let us out to show Alice our new looks. Bella looked as if she would rather just sleep, but I was glad she was doing a bit to help us by coming too. Her smell could be a slight distraction when we ran for it.

Alice was waiting right outside the door. When she saw us, her mouth dropped open.

"Oh God!" She looked at Bella horrified. "Geneviève, what did you do to Bella? You completely ruined her natural beauty."

Bella mumbled about never having natural beauty, but Geneviève over rode her.

"She looks like a model." Geneviève said proudly.

"She looks like she has too much makeup and put too much time into her hair." Alice folded her arms against her chest. "You should have let it down at least and not tried to curl it. That was way overboard. More makeup doesn't mean more beauty."

"More makeup is better." Geneviève scoffed daintily. "She looks like an angel. You are too stupid to recognize it, you little-"

"No." Alice looked mad. She could be surprisingly scary for someone who isn't even five feet. "You've smothered her with makeup. Now we can just see powder. If she was ugly then she might look better, but she was pretty to begin with. Now she looks like a-"

"What?" She said something high pitched in French.

"Let's go." I whispered to Terrance. "It's our chance."

He nodded and followed me silently. It was lucky that Aro was still in the room for some strange reason. He might have noticed us leave even if the other two female vampires were wrapped up in their own worlds.

When we got down two hallways and found a flight of stairs going up, I felt elated. There was more bounce to my step and I felt the thrill of escaping. It was better than in cool action movies because it was real.

"Let's go up. I think we're underground." I pointed to the stairs and Terrance led. There was only enough room for one person to fit comfortably so we did it single file.

"How far underground?" He asked. "Do you know?"

I shook my head but then realized he couldn't see it if he was in front of me. "I think we should go up as far as the stairs go up though. I think we are pretty far under."

"How do you know?" I watched the back of his head. His hair was more perfect since Geneviève had gotten him. I sort of liked it better before when it was a giant mess of brown hair.

"Do you remember getting here?" I asked him.

"No…I had jet lag though, so I was asleep." He said quietly. "Then when I woke up…I was here."

"Oh." I mumbled and realized that I had been half asleep for most of the time too. I remember sort of being conscious and wondering if it was all a dream. I normally wasn't very imaginative when it came to dreams and would just dream about my friends and family talking or whatever.

"Why?" Terrance turned to look at me.

"I don't know how far they took us down." I grumbled to myself in frustration. "It's been driving me mad. I hate when I don't know things."

"So you're one of those types that need to know everything about everyone?" He asked half jokingly.

"No…just about me and the people I care about." I laughed. "I may sound selfish, but I don't care about anyone who doesn't fall into that category."

"That's not selfish. That's smart." He sounded thoughtful. "And you at least care about your friends."

"You're really nice, you know that?" I said upset that he was so kind. "Can you be mean?"

"Sure." He thought for a moment. "I can be mean about politics and celebrities."

"No good….doesn't count." I made my hands into a signal for a foul even though he couldn't see because he was walking up stairs in front of me. "First of all, you don't know those people. Second, that is called being critical, and-"

"Alright, alright." He laughed. "There's no need to start a debate. But what if it was true and I couldn't be mean? What then?"

"I'd say 'you're perfect' now lets trade minds." He chuckled.

For a moment he didn't speak. Just as I was about to break the silence he spoke.

"So, how did you know we were underground anyways?" He asked curious. "I had no idea until you told me."

I shrugged. "Kind of like the vampire idea, I guessed."

"How? What made-"

"Think for a moment." I tested him. "What was missing in all the rooms?"

"Um…mirrors?" He asked.

"Nope, remember that Geneviève had a mirror…I saw her in it, so that theory is trumped." I said smugly. I liked knowing things that others didn't.

"Fine." He sighed. "I give up. What am I missing?"

"Windows." I smiled happily.

"What about them?" He glanced at me over his shoulder. "I haven't seen any."

"Exactly." My voice held the pride plainly. I couldn't help but bask in the smug feeling that being correct, for once, gave me. "There are none."

He paused and then let out a noise of comprehension. This made me smile even more. Being clever wasn't one of my greater talents. I normally just acted like I was smart to give a faux image of knowledge. I honestly knew very little about vampires. But with confidence, you are more likely to succeed.

After we walked up the stairs so long that my calf muscles were hurting, I decided to take a breather.

"Let's stop…for one…minute…" I panted. I wasn't in bad shape, but I definitely wasn't as fit as Terrance.

"Okay." He shrugged and pulled me off into a corridor that was empty. "A break would be good. I'm starting to get a little tired."

I glared at him. There wasn't even a glimmer of sweat on him. He looked like he had just walked a block, not up dozens of flights of stairs.

"You okay?" He put a hand on my forehead. "You look a little worn out."

I shook my head and grabbed his hand and pressed it against my skin more firmly. The cold felt good next to my hot skin. I was really burning.

"Lets…go." I said after a while, but I led him through the corridor rather than up more stairs.

"Where are we going?" He looked confused. "The stairs are…"

He stopped talking the second he saw the window. I had no idea that it was there…I hadn't even planned to run into a window. I had thought we would be underground still. But we weren't.

I looked down the window and breathed out deeply. We weren't many floors up, but we were definitely too far up to jump down like I had planned. We would break out legs or be knocked unconscious.

"What now?" Terrance looked crestfallen.

I examined the window and the windows lower down.

"Look, there." I pointed to a window two stories above the ground. It was the lowest window even though it was still high up. "We can go down…one, two…five flights," I counted the windows. "And then jump."

"I'm not sure whether you are insanely brilliant or just insane." He eyed me with an indescribable look.

"Thank you." I said smiling at him. "I pride myself in being both."

"Definitely insane." I heard him mutter.

"Yup…I'm mad as a hatter." I pulled him along. "Now come on. They are probably realizing we have disappeared right now."

"I suppose they must have." He didn't walk any quicker.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I hate stairs." He grumbled coming along begrudgingly. "I'd rather stay here."

"Well, this corridor does have its benefits." I glanced around at the stone walls.

He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"It's wider…that is. So there is more room for us to see each other without straining our necks." I explained reasonably. "Also, there is much more space in here to walk next to each other rather than in front of each other. I don't know about you, but I like to see someone's face when I am walking with them."

"I like to see your face too." He leaned closer.

"You have really nice eyes, did you know?" I breathed as I got a good look of his green eyes. They were bright green with a few flecks of gold that you couldn't see until you got inches from his face. I loved the way they were rimmed with his dark brown eyelashes.

"I could say the same for you." I could feel his breath on me, he was so close. "More beautiful. I love yo-your eyes." He sounded as if he changed his sentence quickly. Did he really almost say what I thought he almost said, or was that just my imagination overreacting?

I wanted to say something, but forgot how to use words momentarily. This was not making me look brilliant. If I was lucky, my silence would be thought of as mystery rather than what it really was, temporary stupidity due to the presence of an extremely fine male specimen.

"Have I ever told you that I think you're the most angelic thing I've ever seen?" He tucked a perfectly curled hair behind my ear and shivers went up my whole body at his gentle touch.

I opened my mouth but no sound came out. It didn't matter anyways because he was kissing me the next second. It was sweet and tender in the most amazing way possible. There were no fireworks; it wasn't very rough or explosive by any means. It was more of a kiss that made you feel tenderly cared for. It was like sugar after a long time of dieting.

I sighed into him lightly and felt my lips curling up in a smile of pleasure. It was blissful.

After a while, our lips moved away from each other until only our foreheads were touching. I could feel his breathe on my nose and it was warm and slightly wet. Never before had I enjoyed someone breathing on me.

"Ever since you walked into my room," he murmured, "I've been irreversibly in love with you."

My heart hummed in happiness. I felt like I was on a high, not that I have been high before, but this is what I would imagine it would feel like. I felt like I could soar if I tried. Everything was entirely in place.

"I've never felt this way before." I said honestly. "Is it love?"

"I think so." He breathed. "If not, what is it?"

I smiled. My head felt dizzy in a very good way. Every detail was blurred and I wanted it to be clearer. It was like I was looking through clouded glasses, but hadn't seen anything for a very long time.

"We'd better go." He pulled away looking as if he'd rather not. "They will be looking for us. I don't think they will find us soon, but it is better…" His voice was hoarse.

"Yeah…let's go." My voice wasn't too steady either.

He held my hand and we walked down the steeps silently. By silent, I mean that we didn't talk to each other. There was noise.

I could hear his footsteps clearly and I felt the way his hand felt around mine. He had his arm back in what must have been an awkward position, in order to hold mine. His hand felt warm and he guided me protectively, as if her were ready to defend me from vampires that might jump out around a corner.

I didn't think he could defend me, but it was a sweet gesture and it made my heart flutter.

Why was I acting like this? I was like a lovesick girl! This was stupid and I had always frowned upon those people that did this. I was such a hypocrite.

Yet, I still was happy.

What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I doing anything? I didn't need anyone to take care of me or protect me. I was a fairly able woman, perhaps slightly opinionated about feminist rights, but I still should be able to lead too? Why was I letting this guy who I had virtually just met, run all over me?

"Is this the second floor or the third?" Terrance asked me as we approached a hallway.

"Um…second… I think." Why did I just say that? I wasn't paying attention. I had no idea where we were at. I trusted him to be in control of that.

"Come on, then." He pulled me into the hall and we walked side by side. If I were a cat I would be purring.

"Is this window okay?" He pointed to a window a few feet off.

"Sure, yes…anything…fine…just great." I sounded like an idiot.

Terrance smiled. "That's good."

I looked at the window. There was no glass pane. It was open to the entire world. Bugs must not be a problem here in this vampire lair, or maybe they didn't care about bugs. That would be nice…never worrying about a bug bite ever again.

I sighed.

"A penny for your thoughts?" Terrance looked at me curiously.

I sighed again. "Just thinking…vampires…you…there's so much to think about here."

"And a lot of time to think, too." He added understandingly.

"Bad combination." I agreed. "Lethal, really…I mean there is too much for one mind to handle all at once. It should be easier. Just one thought at once would be a nice change. I really hate when you get jumbled messes of thoughts."

Terrance laughed but nothing I said was funny.

"What?" I asked self consciously. "Did I says something funny? Is there something on my face or…"

"No…you're just so…I love your expressions….they are so alive and expressive."

"That's why their called 'expressions.'" I said in a 'no duh' tone. This made him laugh again.

"You are so…I've never met anyone remotely close to you." He beamed at me.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I frowned. "That's why people tell us that we're all unique and special…or whatever BS they give us."

He laughed again and tousled my hair. It wasn't a very romantic gesture at all. Maybe when he almost said he loved me, he meant it like I was his little sister. He must be a few years older than me. I didn't know his age.

"How old are you?' I asked out of the blue.

"Twenty two…why?" He looked at me.

"Hmmm…do you go to college?" I remembered we were here right now. "I mean…did you…before all this mess?"

"Yeah…Pratt Institute. You know, in New York?" He looked at me questioningly.

"You got to art school?" I hadn't known he was an artist.

"Yeah, I'm trying to get a degree in Graphic Design or Visual Communication. I'm not sure yet though." He laughed slightly bitterly. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, though. It's not like I need to choose when I am just going to be caught here forever as a pampered pet."

"We're going to escape." I said determinedly. There was a new fire ablaze in me after seeing him look so sadly about the dim prospects of his future. I didn't want for him to feel that way. It physically hurt me. "Just you wait."

"You really are an angel." He looked at me fondly.

"Oh, yes…I'm very angelic." I snorted in a way that would have made Genevieve's perfectly manicured toes curl. "A real saint."

"So how old are you?" he asked with his head tilted. "You never said."

I hesitated. "Nineteen."

"That's good." He smiled. "I like girls younger. I'm not into older women."

"Well, that's good then." I smiled at him and felt his armed wrapped around my waist.

"Nineteen." He breathed. "Are you just going on twenty?"

"Yeah…I have an August birthday." I smiled. "I'm a Leo."

"I'll have to check my compatibility with you by using one of those cheesy horoscope things." He laughed. "I'm a Gemini…whatever that means."

"You know those are always accurate." I said with a straight face in mock seriousness. "I read a few different ones once and it said I was mellow, hyper, in love, but cooling off from any relationships and most of all financially successful all at once."

"It seems that those different star readings are all accurate." He said in a sardonic voice.

"Yep." I giggled. "It's almost as good as my fortune cookies."

"Oh?" He smiled at me. "What do they say?"

"'You will die, yadda yadda…" He laughed. "And your unlucky numbers are: 13, 47, 74 and 99."

"Mine are always lame." He stroked my check lightly. "Like 'you will go on a trip to a secret place and live happily ever after,' or something along those lines."

"Something along those lines…" I repeated smiling.

"Yeah…well…I suppose we should get down." He looked to the window sadly. "Uh, I think we guessed wrong though."

I looked out the window. "What do you mean?"

"We're on the third floor rather than the second." He pointed to a window below us. "Should we go down more or…"

"Let's just try to get out from here." I said. "I've had enough stairs today to last me a lifetime."

"Agreed." He looked down at me. "How are we going to get down?"

"Follow me." I said with fake confidence. I've got an idea.

In truth I had only a half of an idea, but it was beginning to form in my mind as I looked into the rooms. They were all empty and vacated. After a long while of searching, we found a bedroom.

"Here we are." I rubbed my hands in a creepy replica of evil way. "Mwuhahahahaha."

"You really have to work on that evil laugh." He laughed genuinely. "It's more cute than evil."

"Who said I was trying to make an evil laugh?" I said in defensive mode. "I could have been going for cute."

"Sure, whatever you say." He repressed more laughing.

"Yeah, yeah. Grab the blankets and sheets. Not the pillowcases, though…they would ruin my plan." He did as I was told and I went to the other rooms while he was focused on his task.

The next room over was also a bedroom. I grabbed the sheets and put them in my arms. They smelled musty as if someone had left them in the wash too long. Terrance walked in with a bundle of cloth in his arms. When he saw me he looked releaved.

"What were you doing?" He gave me a concerned look. "I was so scared when you disappeared like that. I didn't know what happened to you. Don't do that again…tell me first before you go."

"Alright, alright." I said irritated by his covetousness manner. "I'm fine."

"I'd trust you anywhere else, but there are vampires here and I don't want you running off." He ran a hand through his hair and it looked messier. I resisted an urge to put my fingers through his hair by clenching them into fists.

"It's not like you can protect me from a bunch of vampires." I said casually.

"Even so," He smiled weakly. "It's nice to know that you are safe…or at least not in danger."

"Well…okay." I dumped more sheets onto his arms. "Carry these for a while though."

He didn't point out that he was carrying all the sheets and that I was only carrying one. Taking them in silence, he carried them for me without complaint. If it were me, I would have been complaining about how life was unfair. Terrance just took things as they were.

We stopped in front of another window in the next bedroom, which was far more luxurious than our own, and looked at each other.

"Perfect." I grinned mischievously. "Give me one of those sheets."

He did as I asked, and together we tied a long chain of blankets together to make one long makeshift rope. He did most of the tying and made some pretty cool knots. When I asked him about his knot skills, he just told me that his dad made him be a boy scout until high school. After he finished his knots, he untied mine and retied them in a 'more secure' way. Whatever. I thought I tied those knots tightly.

"'Kay. I'll go first to make sure it's safe." He tried to take the rope from my hands but I pulled it back.

"No way! Are you insane?" I tugged at it. "I'll go first because I'm lighter. It makes more sense."

"If you think I'm going to let you climb down there without it being tested for if it is safe or not, you've got another think coming!" He pulled on it and it reminded me of tug-of-war for a brief second.

"No…I won't let…." I pulled back as hard as I could.

"Kristina, you're going to rip it." He said while tugging at it.

"No way…you are. Just let go." I bit my lip.

He ripped it from me quickly and I staggered backwards. He put the sheet around me and pulled me closer to him. I felt dizzy again. But that was from the fact that my face was just inches away from his shirt.

"You stay here and don't do anything crazy." He pushed me a way slightly and tied a knot that attached it to the giant wardrobe. I didn't think that the wardrobe would move no matter how much weight was on the motley colored blanket rope.

"Cheater." I said softly. His smell was all around me, but it was slightly covered by some sort of cologne that Geneviève must have sprayed all over him.

"Be good." He brushed his lips against my forehead so gently that I wasn't sure it had even happened. I stood there in shook for a moment as I tried to wear off this daze he had put on me.

By the time I had regained my senses, or at least most of them, he was already most of the way down.

I watched him move down the rest of the ways and thought about how I had barely passed Gym in high school. I had done pretty well in some sports, but if I hated the sport I wouldn't participate at all. I only did the shimmy up the long rope because it was a requirement for graduation. I was really bad at it, but Terrance did it with ease. He wasn't an athlete, but he was very quick and nimble.

"Come on!" He shouted up at me and gave me a thumbs up. "I'll be right here. If you fall, I'll catch you."

"That's great!" I said sarcastically. "Thanks for the approval. It means so much that you think…"

"Come on, Kristina." He cut me off. "We haven't got all day, you know."

I only stopped arguing because he was right. We didn't have all day. I had no idea how much time we had left. Bella could only distract Aro for so long before he started to wonder where his human pets were.

I peered over the ledge of the wide window. It looked a lot farther down from here. Was Terrance really that small? I was beginning to feel queasy in my stomach. I moaned quietly so he couldn't hear. He must have, though, because he looked concerned. Was it my face that gave me away?

"Are you okay, Kristina?" He said worriedly. "What's wrong?"

"Did I ever tell you…" I gulped a pool of saliva down my throat. "I have a fear of…heights?"

I held onto the ledge tightly. Why hadn't I thought of my fear of heights when I had thought of this idea? My façade of boldness was just that, a façade.

"Oh, Kris…" He sighed and looked at me with a strange, almost affectionate, look. "Do you want me to come up and help you…"

"No way!" I practically shouted. "I can do it on my own. It's all just about conquering fears or whatever. I do NOT need help. I am independent and I can do anything you can do, and probably better. No help. I'm fine."

I began to make my decent and heard him chuckling. His laugh was very distracting and when climbing down a makeshift rope three floors above the ground, it wasn't to comforting to be distracted. I needed my focus.

I was slightly shaky, but managed to hold onto the fabric just fine. Now I was glad that he had retied the sheets better because I felt more sure that it wouldn't fall apart while I was climbing.

Just as I was feeling slightly better, I slipped a fraction of an inch and lost my cool.

"It's okay, Kristina." Terrance called. "I'm just below you. You're so close to being at the bottom. Just a few more feet until you reach the ledge of the other window. You're doing a great job."

I lowered myself slowly and felt something beneath my feet. I found the ledge of the window and stood on it for a moment as I regained my breath. One third done…two thirds to go.

I glanced down for half a second, but that was enough to make me more scared. I was so stupid. How many times had I heard never to look down while climbing? Stupid.

"Don't worry, Kris!" I kept my eyes on the wall. "You are so close."

I inhaled deeply at his encouragement. I knew I was going to have to go down no matter what. Whether I fell or made it down successfully was still up to fate, but I knew that I wouldn't take the scardy cat route and climb through the window after I had gone to all that work. Why hadn't we just gone down to this window instead? I couldn't remember. Something about stairs….why was I so stupid?

Tightening my grip on the sheets, I lowered myself more. Terrance encouraged me on and it calmed me slightly. He was so reassuring and made me feel comforted. I still felt terrified, but it was slightly less daunting with him waiting at the bottom.

"Come on, Kris…a few more feet and I will be able to touch your feet." He alleged. "Just a bit further…oh!"

I lost my grip and fell straight into his arms. So happy to be safe, I threw my arms around hum and hugged him closely.

"You are so brave, Kristina." He looked at my face with affection. "You made it."

"I did make it." I smiled happily and had a surge of accomplishment. "I really made it. I'm alive!"

"Ahem!" Another voice broke into our conversation. "What a pleasure to see you two here! If I had known you enjoyed scaling walls so much, I would have installed a rock climbing wall."

I turned to see Aro standing in a shady area under a tree along with an irritated Alice and a small pitiful looking Bella.

"Wh-" I began to ask.

"How'd you find us?" Terrance said accusingly. He glared at Bella who cowered.

"It wasn't Bella." Alice said defensively while still looking like she had a stick up her butt.

"No, no." Aro waved his hand. "This is an argue free zone. Everyone has to be nice."

Alice looked like she wanted to stick out her tongue at Aro…or maybe kick him where it hurts. I didn't know what kind of girl she was.

"Come on! Let's go back inside." Aro pointed to a sewer in the shade that was hidden by the tree.

"Why do you have a se-oh never mind." Terrance and I walked over through the sun to meet them.

We followed Aro who jumped through the sewer, but looked down at the darkness unsure of whether to jump or not. We couldn't escape now, but I didn't want to go down any further. I looked to Terrance who was just as curious as I was.

"Hurry up!" Aro called and his voice echoed. "Jump and I'll catch you…well not really."

"What?!" I screeched. "I'm not jumping if you are just going to watch me turn into a Kristina pancake."

He laughed. "No…no…Marcus will catch you." He acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course Aro wouldn't trouble himself to actually catch us as we fell. That would require him to do something.

Terrance gave my hand a squeeze and whispered in my ear, "Don't worry…I'll be down there."

I watched him jump and had to refrain from screaming.

"Terrance…are you okay?" I shouted down. "Are you okay? Terrance!?"

"I'm fine, Kris." His voice reverberated in the same way Aro's had. "Come on."

"Don't worry." Aro's voice added in. "Marcus will catch you."

"Are you kidding?" I felt even less safe now than if Aro had wanted to catch me himself. "Marcus hates my guts. He would love to 'accidentally' drop me and then eat out my insides."

Aro laughed. "He doesn't hate you. Do you Marcus?"

"If you say so, Aro." Marcus' lazy voice drawled out. "Don't worry human. I'll catch you…even if the reasons aren't for your sake."

"I still don't trust you." I refused to jump. I had gotten so far today. I didn't want to be captured again or killed. I could have just ran off and hoped they would ignore me because they had Terrance, but I couldn't leave Terrance.

"Alright, pet." Aro said happily. "I'll catch you."

I hesitated. I didn't except trust Aro, but he would be less likely to kill me than Marcus.

"Kris," Terrance yelled up. "I promise you will be fine."

Even though he couldn't control what happened, having his promise was good. I trusted him, which was something I couldn't say of the other two vampires that were down there.

I exhaled a breath that I had been holding and flung myself down with my eyes tightly closed. The fall seemed to last forever and the further I fell, the worse the sinking feeling in my stomach got. I shrieked in terror.

Then my back met with cold stony arms. The texture of his skin was papery ad felt sort of nice. It was very soft.

Whoa…what was I thinking!?

Aro laughed. "You see, pet. I told you that you would be safe."

He set me down carefully. I stood up and my eyes adjusted to the pitch black slowly. Terrance came over to me and pulled me next to him.

Together the four of us walked without speaking. I thought I heard Aro mumble "Sometimes, I love Alice's visions. She is so useful…if only I could bribe her to join…"

I frowned and continued on. The next time we broke out…we would find a more efficient way. Why couldn't I have stolen that zip gun from that one night I spent in the police office for protesting?

Next time, my plan was going to be flawless. I would make sure that he couldn't touch the future seeing vampire. Just wait…I was going to pull out something phenomenal.

**Whoa! Long chapter! Took me days to write it all. 16 pages! Oh yes…it is dedicated to the genius theenvylover! Smart idea! I also included a bit more stuff for those of you who wanted it. I had a small Alice vs. Geneviève showdown for you people who wanted it too.**

**Well…I have to start doing homework! Review and tell me what you want in the next chapter!**


	10. Chapter 10

APOV:

Together we walked through the underground passage that I had decided to build six hundred years previously. That was the good thing about being immortal, you could see construction finished.

I could feel Kristina's glaring at me, but tried to ignore it. It was very hard though, especially since I had seen Alice's vision. My feelings were now confused because I knew I would love her, or at least feel some affection for her, in the near future. Because I knew that I would be, my feelings were more romantically inclined towards her.

She shivered into Terrance's arms and I felt a rush of resentment towards my other pet. Was this jealousy?

Marcus touched my arm discreetly and I felt thoughts flooding into my mind. It was a sick torture because he has very vivid imagery stuck in his head. He sensed the strength of Kristina and Terrance's relationship, and the thought of them being romantically involved disgusted me. He also showed me that Kristina felt more emotions towards me than Terrance, although he was still confused if it was hate or love. Normally he can guess which is which, but it can be hard for him because both are incredibly powerful.

I smiled anyways because the day had been stupendous and not even weird feelings could ruin my mood. Alice had saved me from loosing my pets. If I hadn't grabbed her arm while she was having the vision, we would have lost the two pets. It was lucky that Alice was around.

Sadly, I wasn't able to convince her to join us. She left with Bella right after we jumped down. I had read her thoughts but let her go because I knew that we would see each other again one day. Another example of how her visions proved to be useful.

"Here we are, pets." I nodded to Marcus and he opened the door. "Now lets try to be good and not run away again, shall we? We don't want to have to use leashes on you."

Kristina gave me a seething glance and then looked to Terrance.

"Stupid vampires." She grumbled.

Terrance laughed quietly and we resumed our silence as we walked all the way up to their rooms. I watched them enter and shut the doors quietly. I made sure to lock the doors and I forced Marcus to find a vampire to stand guard outside the door so they wouldn't run away.

Then, I started to worry about my business.

Why did Alice have that vision concerning Kristina and myself?

I thought about it for one minute and then decided that there was only one person who could help me with this problem. I hadn't spoken to her in centuries, but I knew she would come at an instants notice. We were old friends and had become that way because we were probably the only two vampires that had been changed at an old age. Everyone else was young and healthy looking for eternity. I never could sympathize with Jane or Alec for hating being turned so early on. I would have traded anything to be their age…at least in appearance.

Tapping a the closest vampire I could find, I asked where I could find one of those ridiculous cellular telephones.

She eyed me strangely, but pulled out a shiny small silver contraption from her pocket. "They're called 'cell phones' not cellular telephones or whatever."

"Cell phones" I repeated while trying to find any buttons. "Where are the numbers to dial? Do I speak into it and tell it the numbers orally?"

She sighed and flipped open the 'cell phone' with an annoyed expression. "Look…you have to open it first…do you want me to call the person for you?" She glanced at me. "I could if you want me to."

"No, no." I took the telephone from her fingers while being careful not to touch her hands. "I will learn…now let me see…what was her number again."

The new vampire sighed and tapped her foot. "You know what, if this is gonna take longer than five minutes…"

"How much did this cellular telephone cost you?" I eyed the sleek advanced item.

"About five hundred dollars, but there are all the minutes that I got extra for taxing, so it would be about…"

"Here." I gave her a few thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills. "Would this cover it?"

She took the money from me with a shocked expression.

"Totally!" She stared at it. "You serious?"

"Yes. I am dead serious." I poked the buttons and they beeped at me. "Are these supposed to be making noise?" I pointed to it.

"Yeah!" She smiled and seemed a lot more willing to help me out now. "You have to type it in here, and the numbers will pop up on that screen there."

She explained to me how to work the telephone in the appropriate way. She kept calling it a razor, but I knew that a razor was a shaving item. She must have been confused.

Finally, when I had all the information I needed communicated verbally, that was a nice change, I headed of towards Caius.

"Hello, Caius." I waved the telephone in front of his face. "Look at my new gadget thing."

"Very nice, Aro." He looked like he was repressing a smile. He was far more impressed than Marcus. "But you can't use it."

"Why ever not?" I asked faltering.

"You don't know how to use one of those phellytones." He said as if it were obvious.

"Oh that…" I waved him off and told him about the new vampire teaching me.

"Interesting…" He looked thoughtful. "But now you need to see if you have her number."

"That's why I came to you." I smiled cheerfully. "I want you to go to the archives and find out all of her info. Bring me her telephone numbers…in order too. I'm not sure if they work out of order. I didn't ask the girl that."

"Be back in a minute." He dashed off.

He was true to his word and was back before I could be bored. He handed me a chart with a group of numbers and symbols on it. It took me a while to figure out that the dashes and parenthesis appeared as you typed. I had trouble finding those keys.

After two rings, I heard her scratchy voice. I knew that she could solve things. Everything would be fine after she sorted out this whole falling-in-love-with-my-pet business.

Short! But as compensation to the last chapter. I didn't want to go into the mystery character now. It is a surprise because I think it will be good. I will keep you waiting. Mwuhahahahaha

**Review and give me ideas on how they should escape next! Love you! **


	11. Chapter 11

**Updating will be less frequent due to events that are out of the author's control. Thank you for understanding!**

KPOV:

I heard a knock on the door that connected my room to Terrance's. I didn't look up.

"Enter." I said while opening the drawers to find a wardrobe that some of the girls from my high school would die for.

"Whoa!" He looked around at the mess I made. "Did a tornado come through here?"

"My mom used to say the exact same thing." I flung the clothes out of the drawer until there was nothing on the bottom but wood. Then I opened the next one and continued tearing it apart.

"So…is there any reason for this or did you just feel like getting back at Aro?" he said amusedly.

"I'm trying to see what we have to work with to escape." I pointed to the doors. "They locked us in, so we have to find a way to get out without leaving the room through those doors."

"Sorry to break it to you, but those are the only doors that lead out of this room." Terrance looked at the mess I had made and sat on my bed. "So unless we are gonna dig our way out through the floor, it doesn't seem…"

"That's it." I stood up happily.

"You can't be serious." Terrance looked at me as if I had just broken out of an asylum. "The floor?"

"No, not the floor. We are underground about five floors right now, remember?" I smiled. "The ceiling will be our safe exit."

"You are going to dig a hole through the ceiling? I hate to break it to you, but it is pretty hard." He grazed the ceiling with his fingers. "Things like that only work in the movies."

"I'm sure there is a way." I pulled a chair to the middle of the room and stood on it so I could touch the ceiling. I wasn't as tall as Terrance so I needed some help, which the chair provided for me nicely. Just as I was trying to find a weak spot in the ceiling, Terrance's arms wrapped around me so I wouldn't fall.

Can I just say that I was more distracted than I should probably be while standing on a chair?

"Kris, what are you doing?" His hands felt so warm around my waist. "You're going to fall of and hurt yourself."

"I love the confidence." I said in my trademark sarcastic voice.

"Well, I just don't like seeing you risking your neck while trying to escape." He pulled me down gently from the chair and held me in his arms. "I'm sorry if I seem overprotective, but I would like to do dangerous things like that instead of you."

"I hope you know," I jutted out my chin proudly. "I can do anything you can do. Just because I am a woman doesn't mean…"

"Kris. Be quiet."

I did, but only because he had kissed me on the lips. Not long, I might add, but he still did kiss me. My grin couldn't be held back.

"Now sit down and be a good girl for once." He put me down on my bed and looked at the ceiling and floor.

After a while of debating, we came to a conclusion that the floor and ceiling were both too hard to dig through and that we needed to come up with a better plan to get out of here or wait until we were in a different room to escape.

I liked the first choice but Terrance thought it would be easier to do the second.

"Fine, whatever." I said. "Let's just think of some ways to get out of here while we're doing nothing."

"We don't have to sit around and do nothing." He said teasingly.

I ignored that, but smiled at the implications that could come from that. "What about your room?"

"We could go there." He traced a finger along my arms slowly. It made me shiver and I could feel tingly sensations spreading through my spine and arm.

"I meant to plan." My voice came out unsteady so I cleared my throat. "Yeah…plan."

Terrance laughed. "Let's go there."

Before I could get up, I found myself being pulled up into his arms. It was very nice but annoyed me. I could walk on my own without assistance.

"Terrance, put me down." I demanded. "Now."

"If I put you down now, you will hit the floor." He pulled me closer to him. "I don't think so, sweetheart."

"Terrance!" I felt indignant. "This isn't funny."

"It's very amusing to me."

"Not to me!" I pouted. "Please, put me down?"

"Alright." He set me down on the bed so that I was laying down and he laid next to me. "So, what do you want to do?"

"I already told you. We need to get out of here. We don't have time for fun."

He kissed my neck. "Are you sure we can't make time?"

I nodded unable to speak but I pushed him away before it went any further. Not that I would mind terribly if it went further, alright I admit that I would like it to, but now wasn't the time.

"Terrance." I breathed. "We have to get out…of here. We can do anything once we escape, but right now we need to…focus on step one."

"I'll behave." He slid his arms from around me and folded them.

"Good boy." I used the voice that people used with their pets. "You are a good boy."

"Hey, I thought that we were trying to get rid of this whole pet business…right Kris?" He gave me a sweet almost heartbreaking look and I had to exert amazing amounts of self control to stop myself from flinging my arms around him and doing what he had just done a moment ago to me.

"Let's just brainstorm some ideas for a while." I shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at his face and feel taunted. It helped a little.

"Okay." He said. "Let's hear your ideas."

The problem was that I didn't have any great ideas. Every idea that I thought was possible was vetoed or proven to be impossible. This frustrated me and I was running out of ideas. There were only so many ways to break out of a room.

"Alright, genius, do you have anything better?" I said irritably.

"No."

I growled in frustration. This was getting us nowhere. We would have been happier if we had just given up an hour ago.

"I think I might have a sort of idea though…" He said and my hopes raised slightly. When he explained the idea I actually jumped for joy. It might work. It really might!

I pulled him to me and planted a big wet one on his face and he blushed. We were so close to being free.

**I'll update one day. RR**


	12. Chapter 12

TPOV:

Kristina told me her idea and I looked at her in complete shock. At times she could be a brilliant mastermind, but this was pushing it to the brink of insanity. I know that Einstein and all of those other famous geniuses were totally loopy, which helped them be more gifted, but I really didn't want Kristina to be that smart.

"So are you in or not?" She asked challengingly. I knew that she was in control and even if I hated her idea I would go along with it. I didn't think she knew how far gone I was under her power, and was thankful.

"Sure…but where are we gonna find a wrench?" I asked curiously.

"Around," she shrugged. "Doesn't matter…we can always just use a makeshift wrench if we need to. One of my friends taught me how."

"Alright then." I clapped my hands together. "I'll begin a search for a wrench."

I got up off of my bed and dug through my drawers. If there was a wrench in this place, it would be in my room rather than Kristina's. I doubted that there was one anyways. Vampires didn't seem to think about any practical things when they furnished our rooms.

Everything here was useless and impractical. I am pretty sure that they had only picked things based on the colors. For instance, all of my books on my bookshelf were different shades of brown and blue. The titles of the books proved that they had picked them only because of the colors and not for any good reading, unless they felt I would enjoy reading textbooks about science.

I sighed and began to tear through my room in a slightly more organized manner than Kristina had just done to hers. When I had given up on ever finding a wrench, I went back to Kristina.

"Are you sure you looked everywhere?" she asked distracted while she tore apart my bathroom. "You didn't miss any drawers, right?"

"I looked everywhere." I sighed.

"Okay…well that's fine." She tossed some towels around and one hit me in the chest. I caught it easily. "It just complicates things marginally."

"Sorry…" I began but she cut me off.

"Don't be. Now this is how thing are gonna go down." She sat down on the closed toilet seat. "I'm going to go down first…"

"No way!" I protested. "If you think that I'm going to let you do this without me doing it first then you are sorely mistaken."

"You sound like my mom." She wrinkled her nose. "Anyways, I am going to go down first. You went first last time so it is my turn."

"Fine." I crossed my arms. "But I will be right after you, I hope you know."

"I know." She held up something in her hand.

"Kris…why do you have strands of beads?" I asked her.

"These aren't just any stupid plastic beads." She grinned proudly and I admired her mouth. The lipstick that Geneviève had applied was wearing off, but her lips were still very red. "These plastic beads are glow-in-the-dark. That way when we are down there, we will be able to see a few inches in front of us. I wanted a flashlight because it will be really dark, but they didn't have one."

"Smart idea. I hadn't thought about the fact that it will be dark down there."

"Thanks." Her smile grew more. "Oh, and by the way…we will be escaping through my bathroom because I sort of trashed yours."

"Um, I'm just glad we aren't going to be staying here." I eyed the mess she had made. "You did a very thorough job."

"Well, gracias! I wanted to give them a hard time." I felt her arm accidentally brush into mine in this small space and I felt a shiver go down my spine. "Although, they probably will just get some more pets and force them to clean up the mess."

"Let's go to my room." Kristina's small hand enclosed around mine and began to pull me towards her room.

When we got to her bathroom, I instantly saw that hers was much more elegant than mine was. Hers was also larger and more spacious. I liked hers far more even though it was ridiculously feminine and everything was perfect.

"Welcome to our escape." She held her arms up. "What do you think?"

"Does it matter?" I shrugged. "We are just going to mess up the place."

"No we aren't." She smiled mischievously. "We will throw a few towels around of course, that way it will look like all of the other rooms, but we will be careful to return the most important part of our escape back to where it was. That way they will wonder where we went to. It will look like we just walked out the door."

"Tricky." I murmured admiringly.

"Very." Kristina rubbed her hands together. "Now let's get started. We can use a towel as a sort of wrench. I'll teach you how to do it, but I don't think I have enough muscle to actually move the bolts. Do you think you can?"

"Sure."

"Great." She grinned. "Now here's how you do it."

Later on APOV:

After telephoning my dear companion, I decided to check up on my two pets that had caused so much trouble. As I passed the guard outside the door I asked him if they had attempted another breakout.

"No." He shook his head. "It sounded like they were having a fit and breaking things, but there wasn't any misguided escape attempt to break down the door."

"Well that is good." I smiled. "It is nice to see that they are adjusting to their situation. I thought Kristina might try to escape again, but maybe Terrance has helped her to see that remaining passive is the best. It's not like we treat them badly, is it?"

"You treat them very well, Aro." The guard said exactly what I wanted to hear. Sometimes it is nice to be in charge.

"Thank you." I held out my hand. "Now may I please have a key?"

He handed me the key to Terrance's room and I entered. There were things thrown about haphazardly, but everything was intact. I was glad nothing had been broken in this room because some of the furniture were originals. It had been terribly hard to find them and then make sure a story was spread about them being destroyed so that no one would search for them.

Terrance and Kristina weren't in this room, but I figured that they would be in her room. The thought of him being in her bedroom irked me for some reason. I pushed those feelings aside and opened the door in between the rooms.

Kristina's room was far more damaged than Terrance's. The desk was knocked over and the teacups on a shelf above the bed that I had gotten from China were destroyed.

The strangest thing about this room was that neither of my pets were in it. There were only two other rooms, which were the bathrooms. I didn't think they would be in there but I checked.

I started with Terrance's and found it in the same condition as the other rooms. Empty and in disarray.

The only room left was Kristina's bathroom. Could they both have hidden in there? I opened the door but found it looking similar to Terrance's. They were gone.

Quickly, I called my guard to come in and do a search over the entire area. Their scents were in every room, but they were gone. The guard swore that they hadn't left through the doors, so we began to check if they had found another way out.

There was nothing out of the ordinary on the walls or floor. I doubted they could even get an inch dug through the ceiling due to the fact that is was solid rock that would be impossible for a human to break through.

"Guard," I ordered. "Get Caius here immediately."

The guard left at vampire speed and returned with Caius at his side in moments.

"What is it Aro?" His white hair fell into his face and he pushed it out of his way. He wasn't as old as I was, but he looked to be very old to new vampires. Only Marcus, Edward, and I knew that he just had prematurely white hair. Caius was only about forty in appearance.

"My pets have escaped." I said in Italian. "Go track them."

He breathed in deeply for a second and then ran to Kristina's bathroom and breathed in again.

"They were here last." He looked around the room intently with the expression he always had when he was tracking someone. "It is strongest here." He walked over to by the sink that was next to the toilet.

"Are you implying that they went down the drain?" I looked at him skeptically. He had never been wrong before, but this was absurd. I hadn't ever seen a vampire lose his talent over time. Normally, they gained more talent.

"Of course they didn't go down the drain." He snorted. "Look here." He pointed to the toilet.

"You think they flushed themselves away?" I asked incredulous.

"Hey, wasn't that a movie?" The guard said rudely. I would have to make Geneviève teach all of the guards some manner lessons for when it came to ranks. "Flushed Away? There were some mice that flushed themselves down the toilet to the sewer."

"Are there actually movies as absurd as that?" Caius laughed. "Are you trying to put the wool over me?"

"No one says that anymore." The guard said. "We call it 'joking,' and I was serious, by the way."

"Strange." Caius said thoughtfully.

Why was no one paying attention to the problem here? Was I the only one that was concerned for my pets' safety? If they ran off they could get lost or run over by a car! This was very bad and we were talking about toilets.

"Let's focus." My voice was sharper than I intended it to be and both of the vampires turned to look at me. "Where are they, Caius?"

Caius picked up a towel next to my feet and several bolts fell out.

"What are those from?" I asked.

"Look there on that object." He pointed to the bottom of the toilet. Sure enough, there were holes where the bolts should have been keeping it in place.

The guard moved the toilet easily and there was a large gap in the ground.

"It seems that they moved they took away the pipes and went down through there." The guard observed. "That's pretty smart. But how did they get the toilet back in place?"

"Maybe they had it within a reaching point from under there." Caius suggested. "It wouldn't be too hard, even for some weak humans."

"Well, let's get down there." I said loudly. "They could be hurt right now! They need us to survive!" I felt anxious.

"Um, Aro?" Caius looked at me. "Are you feeling alright? Did you just say that you want us to go down there?"

"Yes, now help me down." I demanded. The young guard looked ready to oblige but Caius stopped him.

"Wait…you want to go down there personally?" Caius exchanged a glance with the guard. "Have you lost your sanity?"

"No." I felt angry. "My pets are down there. We need to make sure they are safe. I have to know that they are all right. They could be dead by now."

"Aro, I hope you know that they have survived without our help before. I think they can do it again."

"No, they are in danger." I practically moaned. "It's similar to those lions. They lived in the wild for a while but then were put into captivity. When they were released into the wild again they died because they forgot how to live!"

"Aro, I think you need to lie down."

"That wouldn't help them." I frowned. "And vampires don't need to lie down."

"Aro…" Caius began to reprimand me but then stopped. "Fine, I'll go down there and search for them. I can find them better than you because I'm a tracker. Stay still, understand?"

"Fine." I began to pace as he leapt down. This wasn't going to be a fun wait. Already I was anxious.

* * *

**This little line thing is pretty cool!**

**Anyways...R&R! Do you think they should get caught? **

**This will be pretty mcuch updateless until next Saturday. I might find time some day this week, but probably not.**


	13. Chapter 13

**I am on…so here is another chapter of doom.**

KPOV:

We had been walking above the ground for a few minutes now, and freedom had never been sweeter to me. I had always taken advantage of the fact that I was free. I could go anywhere I wanted to, but I had never realized how much that meant until I had been kept in captivity.

"You look so much happier." I turned to see Terrance watching me amusedly. "It's good for you."

"Thank you." I smiled uncontrollably.

He shrugged, but kept his eyes on me. If it were anyone else I would have felt uncomfortable, but I didn't care because it was Terrance, or maybe because the only thing that I could think about right now was freedom.

"A lack of restrictions," I breathed.

"What did you say?" Terrance asked.

"A lack of restrictions," I repeated. "My American History used to call freedom that. He always said that slaves basked in the 'light of freedom, or lack of restrictions. Independence is what the Americans fought for.' I never realized how true it was that restrictions could change the way you see things."

I turned to him and he looked thoughtful.

"You really are an amazing person." He said after a while. "Your mind works so…I don't know…it's just different from other people's minds."

"Different is good." I nodded. "I would hate to be the same as everyone else."

"I thought you would say something like that." He grinned.

"Sometimes, like right now, it seems like I've known you for so long." I turned away from him as I spoke. "It's never happened to me before."

"There's a first time for everything."

"Yeah right," I snorted. "What about the things you never do?"

"I dunno. They might never have firsts…but you would never know unless you try them."

I smiled and grabbed his hand. As we walked through the oddly picturesque streets, we swung our arms together in unison. Kodak should have gotten a snapshot of us for an advertisement. We were a perfect couple in some lovely place where there were cobblestone streets and water fountains with ornate Greek-inspired statues. A perfect picture just waiting to be taken.

"Hey, where are we?" I asked Terrance.

He glanced around at a tourist that was snapping a photo of a clock that was stuck to the top of a building. I thought it was ugly, but to each his own.

"Well, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore Toto." He chuckled at himself.

I grimaced. "I'm serious. Where are we?"

"I dunno," He shrugged in a very Terrance-like manner. "Should we ask?"

"Not yet." I frowned further, this was very bad. "It would seem highly unusual for us to not know which city we are in, let alone state or even country."

"You think we've left the US?"

I nodded. "Where in America could we go that looks like this? And besides," I lowered my voice. "Everyone is talking in some weird language. It's sort of like Spanish…"

"It's not Spanish." Terrance stated. "I took Spanish for about fourteen years. It isn't Spanish."

"All right then." I sighed and felt immeasurably aggravated. "Not Spain or any other Spanish speaking country."

"Sorry." He looked at me apologetically. "I'm just saying. You don't have to get all upset just because you were wrong."

"I wasn't wro- you know what….never mind." I shook my head. "Let's just find out where we are and try to blend in. Then we can try to find our way back to the States."

"Not to be rude and dismiss your idea or anything," he squeezed my hand lightly. "But why would some complete strangers take us to a foreign country just to be pets? Wouldn't they rather have some more local pets or whatever?"

I laughed because the answer was so obvious to me.

"Do you really think Aro would live with some normal pets?" I shook my head. "No, he would want foreign pets so he could call them…us…whatever….anyways, he would want 'exotic' pets, I think. You know…like how some people like to say they have boa constrictors from Brazil? Same idea."

"How come you always think of all the smart things?" Terrance scowled.

"Whatever," I blushed and looked around at the scary immobile statues made of some kind of rock. "Let's just get out of this place. It gives me the creeps."

"You sit here." He pointed to the fountain edge. "I'm gonna go ask someone about our…location."

"Why do you always insist on doing everything yourself?" I asked, but he was already walking away. "Fine. Don't listen to me. I'll just wait here and be as useless as a pathetic little…why am I talking to myself?"

I crossed my arms and pouted while standing up. I was going to defy him at least a little bit and not sit down. Watching him go up to an elderly looking couple that both had shirts that screamed retired-tourists-on-holiday, I fidgeted.

The only good thing about him asking while I stayed was that I got to look at him for a while without him looking back.

Now that I saw him from far away, I could see he was slightly shorter than I had thought he was. He always seemed to tower over me when he was very close, but now I could see that he was only just about six feet.

As I was admiring the way his shirt hugged him, a guy in his late twenties or early thirties walked up to me.

"Hey, honey." His voice was deeper than Terrance's and I saw that he was older than him too. "What's your name?"

"Bug off." I tried to ignore him.

"Sweetheart, I don't think you want to be rude." He moved closer to me. "Will you apologize? You hurt my feelings."

"Yeah, right," I leaned away from him and shot a glance at Terrance, but he was oblivious to me as he talked to the old couple.

"What's a pretty gal like you doin' all alone?" He chuckled. "Did you get lost?"

"No." I said hastily. "I'm not alone."

"You look alone to me." I felt his breath tickling my cheek. It was not a pleasant sensation and I felt uncomfortable chills run down my spine.

"Please, leave me alone." I said through gritted teeth. Why wasn't Terrance looking over at me?

"Who you looking at?" The man followed my gaze to Terrance. "That boy?"

"Could you just go away and find some other person to bother?"

"Am I bothering you?" He traced a finger down my neck and I flinched away.

"Obviously." I hissed. "Now find someone else to annoy. Shoo." I waved my hands and he caught them in his own.

I felt him pulling on my arms, and unwillingly he dragged me a few steps away from the fountain.

"Come on, love." He chuckled. "Don't be a tease. Be a good girl and come along."

"I'm not…" I wanted to hit him but he had my arms held tight as he dragged me towards somewhere behind him.

"Come on, pet." I leaned away as he attempted to touch my face again.

"Don't call me a pet." I said angrily, reminded of Aro by the nickname. Aro might have not been the best person I had met, but at least he wouldn't do something like this to me.

"Does that name bother you?" I felt myself being pushed up against a wall and realized that I was in some abandoned alleyway. I could hear the fountain and the stream of people, but I couldn't see them because there was a dumpster in the way that reeked of grease and mold.

"What's wrong with you?" My voice came out shaky and not strong as I had intended it to be.

He moaned and began to roughly stroke my face. I tried to push him off but he was too big. Unlike in the movies, it was harder to kick someone where it hurts than you may believe. I decided to kick his shins instead.

"Ouch." He looked livid. "Why'd you do that?"

"Let me go." I pleaded.

"Come on, sweetheart." I felt hands roaming up my stomach and tried to stop them. When I couldn't, I closed my eyes and prayed for it to end soon.

Suddenly, where his hands had been there was nothing there but air. When I opened my eyes I saw the guy who had pulled me into here holding his nose which was bleeding profusely. Terrance looked ready to kill. I had never seen anyone looking more dangerous than he was right now.

"Keep your hands off of her." Terrance looked like he was ready to hit him again, but I put a hand on his arm lightly and he turned to look at me.

"Let's just go." I begged. "Please."

"You're messed up, man." The other guys said through a bleeding nose.

"I'm messed up?" Terrance snarled. "No, you know what? You're the one that's…" 

"Terrance, really!" I felt like crying. I never cried. "I want to go home. Let's go."

I tried to pull on his arm, but he wouldn't budge. He ignored me and just glared at the other man. Even though Terrance was smaller, he seemed far more ferocious.

"Terrance," I said his name softly. "Please, for me?"

Slowly, he turned but still kept his eyes on the other man. We walked out of the alley slowly because I was shaking slightly. Once we were in the open surrounded by groups of people, I felt myself being wrapped into Terrance's big arms and held protectively.

"Don't ever run off again." He murmured. "You have no idea how much you scared me."

"I didn't run off." I felt comforted and safe in his warm arms and curled closer. It seemed like I couldn't get enough of his warmth. "Why would I run off with that…that…"

"I know." He kissed my hair tenderly. "I'm sorry, I just…you have no idea…I felt so scared for you. Never before in my life have I…oh, Kris. Everything's all right."

"I was so scared." I admitted. "I thought that I was all alone. You didn't notice me…"

"I did." Terrance lifted my face to just inches away from his as if her were going to kiss me. "I had my eye on you the entire time that I was talking to the tourists. I left them the second I saw that bastard taking you into that…"

"Stop!" I winced as he began recount it. It felt like such a nightmare, things like that shouldn't happen in real life.

"I'm sorry," He apologized. "I just…I just was so terrified for you. I can't believe that anyone would even…"

I shut him up by putting my mouth on his. Our kiss was sweet and there was a tinge of anger coming from him which made it all the more enjoyable. He pressed himself against me more fiercely than he normally would. The moment was perfect until we were interrupted again.

Cold arms were flung around me tightly and I realized that Aro was hugging me while I was kissing Terrance. It was awkward to say the least. I pushed Terrance away and he looked confused for a moment until he saw me being hugged by Aro. He looked crestfallen and slightly protective once he saw Aro.

Aro really does have a knack for ruining my life.

**Tee hee hee. I'll tell you what happened…and how Aro got there, next chapter though! Ha ha! **

**Reviews make me update sooner. (But you knew that)**


	14. Chapter 14

KPOV:

Aro said that the hug was innocent. He said that he only did it so that he could read my mind. But the one thing he can't explain is why he couldn't have just touched my shoulder or something. Now I have to wash off the vampire germs that he spread to me so I don't catch the vampire plague or something.

I wrapped the towel around me as I got out of the shower and looked at my reflection in the steamed mirror. Genevieve's make-up was dripping down my face and it looked like someone had poured black ink down my cheeks.

Wiping the mascara off with disgust, I headed out of the room. When I saw who was sitting on my bed I let out an uncharacteristic squeal and pulled the towel more tightly around my body.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Terrance turned away flustered.

"W-what the…" I stuttered and felt my face grow warm as I realized that I was practically naked. "W-why are you here?"

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" He kept his eyes low as he walked out of the room. "Change, please. I'll be back in five minutes."

If there was an Olympic event for getting dressed, I would have beaten the record. I was slightly worried that I would dress to slow and Terrance would come in after five minutes and I would be wearing only a bra or something.

"You can come in!" I called to him as I plunked myself down on the bed.

The door opened slowly and his face was slightly pink and he didn't meet my eyes.

"We need to talk about this escape thing." He mumbled to the sea green carpet.

"What about it?" I said with the confidence of a person who hasn't been seen wearing just a short towel earlier.

"Well I've been thinking…"

This couldn't be good.

**AN: Sorry I haven't written but I was mad at the computer for deleate-ing my chapter. This is a pathetic chapter in comparison! WEAK AND FEBLE!! Gah! **


	15. Chapter 15

TPOV:

I entered the room with my face in flames. Why was it that seeing her wearing a towel made me so embarrassed? I was an artist for Christ's sake! My job involved seeing people entirely naked and drawing them. She had been wearing far more than the model in my life drawing class had, and I never blushed when I saw her. Okay, admittedly our model was 38 and married, but so what!?

The sad thing was that I knew why I was so embarrassed. It was because the towel was so low in the chest area and so high in the leg area. It was being more than just suggestive and it was hard for me even now to keep the images of her body from my mind. Thinking about that only made me want to do things with her that would probably scare her away from me.

"We need to talk about this escape thing." I didn't realize that I had said that until she answered.

"What about it?" Her voice was very cool. I could tell that me walking in on her was just a surprise and that she wasn't bothered by it in the way I was.

"Well, I've been thinking…" I began.

"Wait, before you say anything more I want you to know something." She walked over to me and grabbed my face in her hands roughly so that I was looking into her eyes. "Thanks."

"What?" I asked slightly confused.

"You know," Her ands dropped from my face and gestured out. "For everything. For helping get out of here, even just for a few seconds. For saving me from that…that…horrible man."

I touched her hair but she pushed my hand away. "Let me finish."

I stood very still and she continued.

"For my whole life I never had anyone to protect me. I always had to be strong until you came into my life. I don't think you know how much that means to me."

"Kris," I took her hands. "It's nothing, really…"

"Yes it is!" She pushed me away again. "You…you…I don't know….it just is important to me, okay?"

She looked frustrated so I nodded as if I understood.

"No, you don't get it." Her eyebrows tightened together. "You have always been there since I first met you. For my entire life I never believed in love because it was only a thing that people put in story books. When people got married it was just because they could put up with that person more than anyone else. Until I fell in love with you I never thought there was love…whoa!"

She seemed to be started because I pulled her against me quickly.

"Did you really just say that you loved me?" I felt a grin on my face and my heart felt funny.

"I thought I already told you." Her voice was muffled from her face in my shirt.

"No, you didn't say it directly." I loosened my grip on her so she could breathe.

"Oh, well then." She shrugged. "I thought we already established the fact that I love you."

After that statement I had to kiss her.

When we broke away it felt like the world was perfect. Our breathing was uneven, but I loved to listen to Kristina's small pants.

"What was it that you said earlier?" Kristina breathed.

"Hmm?" I closed my eyes and rested my head on hers.

"You said you were thinking about something…"

"Oh yeah," I remembered. "I was thinking of not escaping for a while."

I was met with silence, but I couldn't see her expression. All I could see was her hair.

"I mean, there wouldn't be as much security if they grew to trust us a bit, and it isn't like we are in extreme danger right now." I continued hastily. "I just would hate for them to kill us for trying to escape."

After a moment of silence that felt like forever, she spoke.

"That's pretty smart."

**AN: I am sort of bored…I would have typed longer but I was too bored with typing. Thanks to those who reviewed. I wouldn't have written this chapter if you never pressed that button.**


	16. Chapter 16

APOV:

APOV:

I paced around the room for a while. How could my pets have run away? I had made sure they were in a secure room. If they continued escaping like this I doubted that I could keep them in an ordinary room.

"Aro?" I heard a voice call.

"Ah, my dear." I held out my arms. "My dear old friend!"

"Don't call me old," She chuckled. "Age is a matter of thought. You are only as old as you think you are."

"It's good to see you, Octavia."

"Now, may I assume that this isn't a mere social call?" She sat down slowly on a nearby chair. "What seems to be the problem?"

I sighed. "It's problematical…"

"What's the main problem?" she fingered the tapestry above her absent mindedly. I knew she was paying attention even when she looked entirely focused on the design.

"There's this human…" I began hesitantly. I rarely had to talk about my own issues with Octavia. She was generally the person I complained to about other people's issues.

As I explained my feelings towards my pet, she tilted her head and smiled.

"Aro," She said at long last. "This seems to be a very good thing."

"Why?!" I nearly groaned in frustration. "She is in love with my other pet. I could kill him off, but that probably would lead her to not liking me in return. I could wait in time for her to have changed feelings, but how long could that take? Humans die so quickly? What if she dies?"

"Make sure to it that she doesn't die." She stood up. "You may have to change her. Are you willing to spend infinity with a human you've met only days ago?"

"You are forgetting," I pointed out, "That I have not only met her days ago. She met me only days ago. I read her thoughts for a lifetime. I know everything about her."

"So, you are sure you love her?"

"Alice saw it." I nodded. "Alice is always right."

Octavia looked thoughtfully at me for a moment.

"So, she is with this boy… this human boy." Octavia confirmed.

"Ad interim." I said in Latin with a laugh.

"Amantes sunt amentes." She replied.

"Not always…" I frowned. "Lovers are only lunatics when they are falsely in love. Human love, rather than true love."

"Can you offer this Kristina love?" Octavia asked me wisely.

"I could." I smiled self-assuredly.

"Then why did you need to talk to me?" My friend asked loudly. "You already knew your answer."

"I needed some confidence."

"Aro, I will always provide people who need confidence with confidence. You never have needed any confidence."

"Even so," I tightened my cloak around my chest. "I felt the need to speak with you. You always make me feel more certain."

"Bona fortuna!" She made a slight bow to me and left. Marcus held open the door for her and looked at me quizzically.

When she left he turned to me.

"What are you planning on doing?" He asked angrily.

"Why do you assume I am planning anything?" I slid out of the room with poise.

"When Octavia comes to visit you, there is something brewing." Marcus frowned. "The last time she came a war was nearly started."

"I am not planning anything." I said as honestly as I could. I wasn't technically planning anything. I was going to wait and see how the situation was before planning anything.

"Then why did you need to see …her?" marcus asked me. "What was making you so …"

"Marcus…What are you talking about?"

"Why did you need to feel confident?" Marcus hissed.

"Confident?" I blinked acting dumb. "What are you talking about?"

"I know her gift." He frowned. "Why do you need to feel reassured? What is bothering you?"

"Oh?" I chuckled lightly. "I see what you think now. You think that I needed to see her to feel more confident! No, no! You are mistaken! I merely wished to greet an old companion of my own."

"Aro, tell me." Marcus glowered.

"It's…"

Marcus growled deeply and shoved me against the wall roughly. A few vampires ran to see the commotion but hesitated when they saw the scene. Both Marcus and I were in a position of great power. For them to step in would mean they would have to choose sides which could be fatal.

"Aro." He growled my name angrily. "I have had it with your attitude. You are not clever. You are a pawn. Now tell me, what was so important that you had to bring Octavia all the way from across the world?"

"My pets!" I clawed at his hands. He was blocking off my throat tightly and suffocating me. It wasn't dangerous but it was painful and uncomfortable.

"What about them?" Marcus tilted my head with his other hand.

"Kristina…" I gasped. Speaking was growing harder.

"What about the filthy human?!" Marcus yelled his eyes growing even deeper black. I saw my reflection in them. I looked frail and weak. She could never love me. Never. She had a life before her and I was just an old man who loved to play with human affairs. I was just as foolish as them. All the years, all the memories I had gained, and I still knew nothing about how to gain the heart of the one person I wanted.

"I love her." I smiled. "I am planning to change her."

A look of horror and disgust passed his face and then he curled up his lip. He dropped me suddenly and I fell to the floor. Pulling at my neck feeling cool air rush into my lungs once more, I felt enlightened. I knew what I had to do. I had a goal, a purpose. For once in my many years, I had something to live for.

"You repulse me." He looked away from me. "I thought you were better than the rest of them. That's why I joined you those centuries ago. I thought you knew what love is. It is nothing. Just an illusion. But I see now… even those who can be set against investing too much, can fail."

"Marcus, once I would have agreed with you…"

"Silence!" He moved so quickly even I couldn't see him. I was on the ground in pain screaming not knowing what had happened and then he was gone. I sat up and looked at the two vampires who had been watching this scene. They quickly scurried away when they saw I had seen them. Then I looked down at myself.

I was covered in my own blood. Silvery streaks of it tinged with red trickled down my robes and covered the floor. Marcus had bitten me.

Wrapping my robes around the wounds I stood up. It cause me great agony to move, but I knew I had to get to Caius. Caius could instill reason into Marcus.

Struggling to stay upright I slowly moved at a human pace towards where Caius generally was. I focused on seeing him and tried not to think about the pain of moving. But the pain that split through my body every time I moved even the slightest was pure torture. It was impossible not to think about the anguish I was in.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the door of the room. I would pause for just a moment to gain my breath. The door was cool to my skin, as I leaned in slightly I slipped and fell to the floor collapsing. A breeze brushed against my eyelids and I felt calmed. I wondered about death.

Would death be so bad? I had lived without thinking of it for years. Even thought other people died all around it was surreal to imagine it happening to me. The angel of death rarely touched vampires and when it did it never was to anyone close to me. I never thought of death as even a possibility for me. But now it could happen. All that would need to happen would be for one person to light a match. A human or a vampire could do it. Then it would all be over. Would it be worth it? Had I outlived my time? Would I be happy to die? I wouldn't be able to see Kristina, but Kristina didn't need me. Perhaps that was why I loved her. She was the one person who was entirely indifferent to me.

For a moment I hesitated in my thoughts. Would changing her be the right thing to do?

Then my brain kicked in again. Of course changing her is right. Octavia said so. Octavia is always right about these things. It is her gift to make people able to do the right things.

My brain floated for a while thinking about thoughts that may or may not have been my own. It was all real and yet surreal. I wasn't sure what was what. I lost track of time. It could have been years for all I knew. I could sustain for years just sitting.

Faintly I heard a scream in the distance. I wasn't sure if that was real either. I saw Kristina's face floating. It was like a dream, only I couldn't sleep. So, perhaps I was dreaming awake. Things were too vague for me to tell. Then I heard Caius' voice and remembered I had to speak with him. I told him so and he gave me that look.

Dreams were definitely strange if this was one of them.

**An: yes took forever to update but whatev! I updated! **


	17. Chapter 17

KPOV:

KPOV:

I knocked on the door only door out of the room.

"Hey, bloodsuckers!" I rapped impatiently. "Listen. I can't imagine how much you are being paid to stand around and guard…"

Terrance put a hand on my shoulder. "Let me handle this."

"Why should I?"

"You don't have the…right…" He gave me a look.

"Fine." I frowned getting what he was inferring too. "I may be a bit sarcastic."

"I'm not sure that will get us anywhere at the moment. So can I try?"

I sighed and crossed my arms. I hated other people doing things that I could do on my own. It was one of my pet peeves.

Terrance gently tapped on the door.

"Listen," He said. "I know you can hear me. We aren't trying to break out or get away or pull anything funny like that. Honest! We're just a bit tired of staying in the same rooms for so long. It's been hours and there is absolutely nothing to do in here. We were wondering if we could make a request?"

"And what may that request be?" One of the guards said after a moment.

"We were wondering if we could walk around outside the rooms for a bit? Just a while. We won't attempt an escape or anything. We just want to move around, you know? You could stay with us if you want."

There was a pause. It sounded like the two guards were debating whether to take mercy with us or to follow orders. Eventually the murmurs ended and there was just silence. I felt a bubble of agitation well up inside of me. If they were going to ignore us and just leave us waiting here, well they had another think coming!

"Listen you two brainless…"

"Kristina!" Terrance covered my mouth with perfect time because at that moment the other guard spoke.

"We will escort you around," He growled. "But that is it. We will come back to the rooms immediately after. If either of you try to escape we will bite the other. If both of you try, well…it would be a tragic accident."

"Oh, lovely." I said sarcastically as they opened the door. "I'm so glad that they want to make us feel so safe. Just when I was about to forget that they were vampires from hell they made sure to remind me."

Terrance pulled me close to him and whispered next to my ear. "Kristina, will you shut up already?"

"What?" I asked, "I mean, I'm not the one…"

Terrance gave an exasperated look and I quieted quickly. Frowning we all walked in silence. One guard walked in front of us and the other walked behind. I didn't doubt that they were prepared to at any moment take us down.

"So…" I broke the uncomfortable silence, but by doing so I may have made it even more awkward. "Um…so you two live here?"

"Yes."

Wow. Very concise. I don't know why I decided to try again, but I did.

"So, you just live here and guard people and stuff?" My voice shook slightly. "Sounds exciting."

"Yes." The guard shot me a look. Sadly I didn't know what he was trying to convey in that look so I just kept talking.

"Let me get this straight, you just stand outside people's rooms and make sure they don't move? And that's your job?"

"We generally have more important jobs than that, but yes, that is what we do."

"Sounds great. Real fun." I smiled. "So this must be a nice, um, break from just standing. I mean, this little tour of your home-slash-workplace thing."

They didn't respond.

"Kristina?" Terrance slipped his arm around my waist. "Be good."

"When am I not?" I sighed. "Now, back to about this tour. I think that you two one day should look beyond guarding humans like us and go into a more suitable business for your talents. Such as perhaps working as a…what do they call them? Those people that sell houses and stuff?"

"Um, realtors?" Terrance looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

"Those are the things!" I nodded. "Realtors. I mean, look at you guys!? You really know how to show off a place. Really, you are the quiet types which is what the real estate market needs. Most of those people they talk talk talk talk talk. But you two, yes, I think you have potential that is being wasted. I mean, you have managed to let us appreciate the beautiful…um…slightly creepy atmosphere that this place has."

"Kristina, for gods sake shut up already."

"I'm not done." I laughed nervously. "You see, I think that some of those realtor people, they can talk 'til the cows come home if you know what I mean…"

"You can talk until the cows come home…" One of the guards grumbled.

"Kristina, seriously." Terrance nuzzled his nose into my hair. "You ramble when you are nervous. Why are you nervous?"

"I'm not nervous!" I pushed him away in what I thought was a dignified independent manner. "I just want to create some talk. A conversation, you know? But it is really hard to have a conversation when everyone wants to be all quiet!"

"You could be quiet too?" Terrance said it as a question. I looked at him pleading me to give it a rest and I sighed.

"Fine." I crossed my arms. "I'm like a mime. Not a word will come from my lips."

From that moment on I swore to be quiet. We walked in silence for a minute. Then two minutes. Then five minutes.

Each second seemed drawn out but I counted in my head. Every time I felt compelled to point out something, I bit my lip hard. I found that pursing my lips helped too. I glanced at Terrance who was smiling at me. When I gave him my what-are-you-looking-at-buddy stare he burst out laughing and the guards both glared at us. I stuck out my tongue and a thousand things raced through my head that I wanted to say to him. It took a lot of self-control to keep my teeth clenched.

Two vampires came through the halls walking ridiculously fast. It was almost like running, but they seemed to be walking. It looked almost as if they were floating or skating across the ground. They walked past us and gave us hungry looks. I felt Terrance move me behind him slightly but when I looked at him they were already past us.

Suddenly the guard in front of us stopped abruptly and pulled his cloak so we couldn't see in front of him. He spoke quickly in Latin or something and the other guard behind us nodded and ran off. I wanted to ask what was going on desperately but I kept my mouth shut. In my head I told myself to shut up over and over hoping that maybe my subconscious would understand and stop giving me things to say.

"What's wrong?" Terrance asked nervously.

The guard looked back at us with a shocked expression and shook his head. A moment later the guard behind us reappeared with another pale vampire. He looked familiar to me, but then again, all vampires looked alike.

The new vampire pushed the guard in front of us away with authority. "Let me see him?"

"See who?" I whined giving up my vow of silence. "What is going on here?"

"Oh my god." Terrance's eyes widened as he looked over the vampires shoulders. I stood on my toes but was too short to see. I cursed my mother in my head for giving me the recessive height gene.

"Would someone tell me what's going on here?!" I pushed past Terrance and tried to shove the vampires apart so I could see. The guard stepped aside for me the second I touched him as if he was surprised.

Then the scene came into view.

Aro was slumped over. My first thought was that he had a heart attack or something but then I noticed the white liquid coving him. It was almost silver and there were hints of a faint red. I realized a moment later that this must be what a vampires blood looked like.

I screamed loudly. I don't know why. I mean you would think that I would feel elated that the insane whacko who was holding me hostage was torn to pieces lying on the floor. Apparently, though, my queasiness overweighed my dislike of Aro or something because I began to feel faint. It probably was the fact that his blood was silver and not red.

The vampire to my right began yelling orders about in Italian. The guards both left and the vampire walked over to Aro and knelt down beside him. The vampire repeated Aro's name over and over but Aro didn't respond.

"Is he alive?" I approached him cautiously.

"Yes." The vampire said shortly. "Now leave. Go back to your rooms. We can't have you here now."

"Will he be all right?" I asked slightly concerned. Even though Aro was insane, he was the only vampire who actually cared about us. I hated to think of what would happen if one of Aro's crabby friends had us in their care. We undoubtedly wouldn't last more than a minute before we were turned into a nice little snack.

"Go to your rooms!" The vampire shouted angrily.

Terrance pulled me away and took me several feet away from the vampire.

"What were you thinking, Kristina!" He sighed. "You could see he was upset. Did your mother not teach you not to talk to upset vampires or something?"

"No, she must have left out that lesson."

"Really?" Terrance pulled my hand. "Well they bite. And I don't like being next to vampires who bite."

"Neither do I!" I smiled.

Terrance sighed and I laughed.

"Come on you fool." He kissed my forehead. "Let's go back to our rooms."


End file.
